Squatter Wei | National Chengchi University

Google Map, due to its concrete information, cautious algorithm, and the breadth of expansion in users, has been regarded as a reliable clone of the real world, at a certain level, becoming the real world’s digital twin. Google has closed its branch in Russia ever since Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia on Google Maps, as a replica of Russia made from the western world, has lost its profitable feature, thus, was abandoned. It remains on the Google Maps cloud, becoming a virtual “abandoned land”, without the absence of government and power center. In this work, photos of abandoned stations are dropped onto 58 different train station sites on Google Maps. They’re the consequence of the Great Disconnection—a virtual incident of Russia’s voluntary, complete detachment from the western system. The Great Disconnection, in short, the GD, has caused the railway system to corrupt. One by one, train stations fell into decay. Start from the border, later the whole land. A virtual, decentralized, abandoned land has risen. What’s, and where’s the possibility of squatting, altering, reshaping, even pioneering?

Ray Wang – National Chengchi University (TW)

Ray Wang is a Taiwanese, just got her bachelor degree of Chemistry from National Taiwan University. Right now, she’s obsessed with the contradiction and the parallel of the idea of “digital twin” – the way it both is and isn’t the real world; the fact that it could represent and negate the real world, weirdly, at the same time.

Squatter Wei is her first work ever in presenting the bizarreness of this concept. It’s conflicting, with multiple characteristics, crossing, bonding, clashing into each other, thus full of fun. And she is fond of fun.