Bitcoin Mining and Field Recordings of Ethnic Minorities
Liu Chuang, 刘窗
On loan from White Rabbit Collection, Sydney
Film length: 40:09 min
What infrastructures lie behind modern technologies?
Cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens and other technologies demand huge resources and extensive infrastructure in order to exist. 70 percent of the world’s Bitcoin mining power is concentrated in Southern Asia and largely supplied by hydroelectric stations. This modern infrastructural encroachment greatly impacts the lives of people in these regions. By juxtaposing original footage, archival images, and scenes from iconic sci-fi films, Liu Chuang critiques how technological and cultural representations affect marginalized communities. A complex web is detailed here, slowly revealing the entangled lines between history, technology, infrastructure, ecology and finance.
Who do these advancements affect the most?
BIOGRAPHY
Liu Chuang (CN) works primarily with film, sculpture, readymade and installation. His works often integrate long-term history and ecological arc for imagination, tracing the social, cultural and economic transformations of contemporary China. Weaving narratives that connect the micro and macro, past and present, fiction and reality, Liu Chuang explores how vast and complex changes in nature, tradition, demographics, cutting-edge technology, and socio-economic systems affect individuals and their engagements with the world as a whole.
Photography credit: Phoebe Powell