Elizabeth Vander Zaag: Digit Series: Digit Logic Lecture; Digit Recalls The Future; Digit Reproduces; Digit Porn

Title:

Digit Series: Digit Logic Lecture; Digit Recalls The Future; Digit Reproduces; Digit Porn

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Creation Year:

1976 – 1980

Medium:

Video

Artist Statement:

Vander Zaag created Digit to be a digital foil for her analog identity. This early work is a basis of the artist’s concern with what it is to be the human in human-computer interactions. In “Digit Porn” (1976) sexually charged images from a computer magazine are coupled with lines from real porn literature in an effort to disrupt the male dominated narrative of ever more seductive computer hardware. In Digit Reproduces (1976), Digit appears as a young woman whose parents are of a different technological generation, to wit: “Mama and Data were both analogue.” Digit Recalls the Future (1978) is a futuristic animation made of drawings, programming text, and male and female voices in the style of a language lesson in which it is observed that ”everyone will wear little devices, which record audio and video of everything in their lives.” In Digit Logic Lecture (1980) the artist moves her body in disruptive postures to illustrate a philosophy about the fundamental difference between Digit and Man.