George Lucas called it the “used future.” He created an image of a lived-in, used-up, dingy and dirty world where obscure objects, oil-stained furniture, and beat-up technology look like they came from the opposite sides of the galaxy. 

To create an altogether more credible image of the future—where young and ancient civilizations coexist, feeding off of each other—CGI artists and animators spend tremendous effort denting, burning, and bending surfaces of their pristine computer-generated spaceships. They know that whatever it is that viewers see on their screens, no matter how far removed from anything “real”, needs to be deeply rooted in our experience of objects and matter. 

For a moment, lets allow the free-floating animated spaceships tickle our collective imagination, and look closer at the things that are deeply embedded in our history, identity, and self-expression. Things like jewelry.

Historically, the entire value system of jewelry is based on its materiality and its tangibility. Seen as an investment, it is above all a possession—an object to own, to hold, and to inherit. But how does this value system play out when the materiality of a work is taken out of the equation? What happens when jewelry becomes digital, existing in an entirely different realm, taking on a life of its own? 

This may seem like a speculative scenario, but the existence of screen-bound jewels raises all kinds of very real questions. What is ownership and what is authorship? What is uniqueness? What is luxury? What is wearability and materiality?

An oily fingerprint depicted on the perfect facet of a rendered diamond, a curly hair stuck in the prong of a 3-D–rendered ring, a deep scratch on the smooth surface of digital metal, or a tiny stone missing from a geometric binary pavé …

If it takes a thoughtful representation of “old” and “new” objects welded-slash-copy-pasted from the opposite sides of the imaginary galaxy to convince the viewer to accept a far-fetched utopian scenario, perhaps hyper-real renders of jewelry can become a part of our digital and analogue lives, and work to bring these what-if futures into our now.

Symposium Setup

The Symposium reflects this speculative theme by introducing an innovative way of conducting a group discussion. The audience will be presented with tools to give feedback and influence the discussion in real time, digitally expressing their emojions: love, like, confused, dislike, etc. The group discussion will also be joined by a chatbot designed by Current Obsession to represent the collective knowledge about jewelry – The Jewelry Oracle.

The Symposium will look into what defines authorship and authenticity in today’s digitalized world, when social content, images, memes, and quotations get dispersed to and by the masses. If we can think beyond the notion of copyright and ownership, what opportunities does this reality entail for (post-digital) artists and designers?

Our experimental event is designed to maximize the ‘mind-mining’ of the invited experts, to discover and to imagine what these questions could mean for jewelry. Transposed over the traditional CO Social Club setup – a horizontal conversation between the moderator, invited speakers, and the public – the experience will receive new, digital layers. The generated content will serve as a starting point for the next issue of Current Obsession Magazine.

Moderator

Jeroen Bouweriks is an anti disciplinary artist and educator based in Amsterdam. He holds a MFA in artistic research from WdKA/PZI in Rotterdam. and is the founder of OffCourse, a cross academic art institute or anti institute for (in)appropriate behaviour. In his art practice he explores the possibilities for art as education and education as art. His research often entails the topics: file-sharing, plagiarism, shared authorship, in-authenticity and participation. Currently he lectures part-time at the WdKA in art/design theory and concept development. Website

Omnipresence

Jewelry Oracle is a chatbot comprised of collective knowledge on jewelry superimposed onto both discussions. It embodies a multitude of opinions, voices, facts, and speculations in an ever-growing archive; its knowledge is rooted in art history books, magazines, poems, songs, and interviews with artists. The Jewelry Oracle is rendered by Inès Marzat and coded by Sepus Noordmans.