“Fictioning in the Thirdspace:

Contemporary Artworks That Call Forth a New Digital Way of Being”

Abstract

Taking initial inspiration from Luciano Floridi’s idea of re-ontologisation through digital technologies, this essay approaches a new digital way of being through the practice of fictioning in contemporary art. As a practice that concerns the imagining of future worlds and ulterior realities, it provides the framework to analyse four artworks that utilise digital technologies in different ways to call forth this new digital way of being. The first artwork, Emissaries, by Ian Cheng is used to form an understanding of the self as a machine outside of capitalist ideology. When the self is considered in collaboration with the machine, it allows us to derive new meanings through relating to the unfolding narratives of the characters in Emissaries’ simulated world. The second artwork, The Maw Of by Rachel Rossin represents the characteristics of the thirdspace- a term denoting experience as equally comprised of real and virtual space that acknowledges the change in what constitutes experience created by the mass implementation of digital technologies. The third and fourth artworks The Pregnancy Sense and Seismic Sense by Moon Ribas explore the notion of becoming technology to reinforce the extent of technology’s influence in the world through technological implants that are introduced within the body to create new sensory experiences. In doing so, Ribas performatively communicates her experience as a form of immaterial writing that aids in avoiding restrictive language which limits what we can imagine the future to be. These artworks are used to work towards a new digital way of being that understands technology’s influence in how we access and interpret daily life in our current world and acknowledges the influence they will continue to have on our experience in the future.