Tong Wu & Yuguang Zhang
Bureau of Cloud Management
Bureau of Cloud Management, created by new media artist duo Tong Wu and Yuguang Zhang, is an art research project that recreates the shared memory of observing clouds utilizing the cloud computing technology. It’s an artistic intervention on the feelings of languish and disconnection widely observed in our daily interaction with a world constructed upon the fast-speed, global-scaled computer networks.The duo created a simulated 3D environment that depicts the daily working scenes of the Bureau of Cloud Management (BCM), an imaginary government agency managing the lawful entry of clouds passing by the sky area it monitors.
Borrowing a bureaucratic structure and modern system interface aesthetics to reconstruct the brisk and day-dreaming experience of observing clouds, the duo encourage audiences to play the role of the bureau worker, using the BCM system to re-examine and awaken their primitive connection with the world.
The Index 2022 version of the project is a web-based experience that presents the monitoring interface of BCM, where participants could be given the identity as a BCM worker, and get to record and archive the passing-by clouds, which are simulated based on text materials collected from the participant’s respective geo-locations and generated by customized Machine Learning pipelines.
Tong Wu is a multimedia artist raised on the Internet. She now co-exists with her digital doubles in New York and the Chrome browser. Tong Wu’s art research focuses on cyberculture, the digital system, and how “individuals” form relationships with their overpopulated avatars in the era of digital. She uses various media, such as 3D visuals, machine-learning models, installations, and performance, to construct a speculative world of digital doubles and to present the fluid yet dystopian nature of “individual”.
Yuguang Zhang is a New York-based new media / AI artist and creative technologist. He is a current research resident of the Interactive Media Arts Low Res program at New York University, a machine learning technologist at De-Yan, and a member of multidisciplinary artist collective NUUM.