Were used to following instructions. The pandemic has only increased our need to be told what to do: Everywhere, lines of security tape delimited the spaces we could go, or where we could sit. While we navigate a changing environment, looking for directions and adapting to circumstances, we try to improve, to learn something new, to keep calm, to do more exercise. Meanwhile, the platforms and apps we use apply the algorithms designed by their developers to cater to our needs, customize our experiences, and gently influence our behavior. Instructions follow: As we move into the future, there will continue to be more indications, regulations, and control placed over us. The artworks in this exhibition explore our relationships with digital devices and information systems from the perspectives of both humans and machines, as a way to reflect on how our present time is governed by codes, regulations, and defaults. Pau Waelder

Feral File  Instructions Follow

In &ldquo;Just in case,&rdquo; Thierry Fournier addresses the perception of digital systems as an Other by reversing the relationship between human and machine. Borrowing from the experience of solving captchas, the work sets up a fictional situation where it&rsquo;s considered normal for a machine to detect whether or not someone is human all by itself.

In the piece, the screen shows a message that seems to come from a computer program that wonders if the person who observes it is human (&ldquo;checking you are human&hellip;&rdquo;). It hesitates, calculates, and a wheel turns. Finally, it stops and displays a brief &ldquo;thank you.&rdquo; Then it starts again, ad infinitum. A brief moment of doubt arises while the process runs, which is lifted when the animation starts again&mdash;only to open up more questions.

As an animated GIF, this edition can be easily distributed via social media posts, messages, emails, and any other form of digital communication. In those spaces, it can be experienced outside of an artistic context as a way to hint at humans&rsquo; dystopian relationship with machines, or to question how to define what being human is.