One-Work Exhibition. “Dispersed Images”

From August 3 to November 30, the Lithuanian National Library (Music and Visual Arts Reading Room, 5th floor) is hosting the art project-book “Dispersed Images”, created by the art collective “Postvisible”, which explores the internet as an archive and a space of cultural memory.

“Dispersed Images” hangs somewhere between an art object and an archive of visual material with an unclear purpose. When browsing through the book, you will find thousands of images divided into digital folders that previously existed on the internet, in so-called torrents (torrent; a method of streaming (partial) file downloading). The photographs were downloaded using the so-called seeding process of this technology – when parts of files shared by users with one another across a network of servers are, in a sense, scattered. This process is unique because if there are no longer any users sharing a file across the network, the file itself also disappears.

In such a system, images seem not to exist in reality; their existence is more fragile than that of analogue photographs. Within such a structure, the more users share files, the safer they become. A broad network of people is responsible for preserving the data, while users of this process perform the function of an archiving tool. Thus, digital documents, like rare manuscripts, disappear when left unattended.

The content of this book consists of images created or collected by people, obtained from unclear sources and collected without a clear purpose. This format of sharing, in which authorship fades with each sharing of an image, itself exists as a historical source – it records how the internet once functioned and what was published on it.

The file-downloading method described above, as well as processes of obtaining information or content illegally and free of charge, are becoming increasingly rare in our everyday lives. What could once be obtained illegally from the vast expanses of the internet, risking downloading a virus or facing the threat of hacking, has now been replaced by subscription models offered by global institutions for almost all sources of information (articles, films, food recipes, lessons). Although the risk is smaller, the real possibility of data leakage remains. This exhibition book reveals what role the internet played in people’s lives and what information they had access to.

The book and the images contained within it exist as a fleeting memory of a time when the internet was freer and more open, if you knew how to use it as a source and a tool. At that time, websites and databases were more independent and harder to find. Today, the internet is accessible to a larger part of humanity, but the amount of freely circulating, free information is decreasing. Libraries and other memory institutions help preserve it by digitising images and making them publicly accessible; the content remains free, while copyright remains protected.

The format of the images presented in the book invites us to look at how images travelled from hand to hand, from screen to screen through folders, at a time when infrastructures such as “Google Images” and other search engines had not yet established strong foundations.

Such an artefact – thousands of unique images created by people (maps, photographs, memes, caricatures, digital drawings) – in the rapidly spreading age of artificial intelligence (AI), when AI is increasingly entering commercial and public spaces, helps us understand and assess what digital images looked like when their only creator was a human being rather than an artificial intelligence prompt.

The obvious contrast between a human-created image and an AI-generated image can serve as an invitation to view computer technologies as tools, and image creation as a craft that encourages digital independence.

ISBN 978-609-447-403-3

“Postvisible” is a collective of interdisciplinary creators, writers and curators guided by an open model of communication and collaboration. The publication “Dispersed Images” is the collective’s first project. Although the field of interest of “Postvisible” is broad and undefined, the book focuses on digitality and its sidelines.

Curated by: Viltė Barbora Vilūnaitė

Book edited by: Daniel Kravčiuk and Giedrius Satkūnas

With thanks to: Ana Baravykienė, Irma Bazienė-Stanaitytė, Monika Pakerytė, Dovydas Černiauskas and the Photography and Media Art Department of the Vilnius Academy of Arts.

The “Postvisible” collective sincerely thanks the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania for its collaboration.