Lianjiang Zhu
- All Images © Lianjiang Zhu
Only the Switchable Exists (2025)
UV print on anodized aluminum, red copper, brass, and screen display components
60 x 90 cm
Edition of 1 + 1AP
We often perceive digital images as weightless and immaterial, yet the hardware that sustains them is rooted in tangible minerals and metals. The conceptual framework of this work draws upon Friedrich Kittler’s assertion: “Nur was schaltbar ist, ist überhaupt” (“Only that which can be switched is, in fact, existent”). Within the digital condition, only what can be converted into states of on and off, into codes and signals, is acknowledged as existence by the system.
The transparent chequerboard of the PNG format functions as a symbolic convention for the “invisible pixel”: transparency only “counts” once encoded within the software’s operational logic. In this work, I scale down and repeatedly layer this invisible grid, symbolising the endless proliferation of switchable strata in processes of data production. These digital layers are ultimately pressed back onto metal substrates of aluminium and copper, exposing both the material foundations of virtual existence and the inescapable material costs that underwrite it.
UV print on anodized aluminum, red copper, brass, and screen display components
60 x 90 cm
Edition of 1 + 1AP
We often perceive digital images as weightless and immaterial, yet the hardware that sustains them is rooted in tangible minerals and metals. The conceptual framework of this work draws upon Friedrich Kittler’s assertion: “Nur was schaltbar ist, ist überhaupt” (“Only that which can be switched is, in fact, existent”). Within the digital condition, only what can be converted into states of on and off, into codes and signals, is acknowledged as existence by the system.
The transparent chequerboard of the PNG format functions as a symbolic convention for the “invisible pixel”: transparency only “counts” once encoded within the software’s operational logic. In this work, I scale down and repeatedly layer this invisible grid, symbolising the endless proliferation of switchable strata in processes of data production. These digital layers are ultimately pressed back onto metal substrates of aluminium and copper, exposing both the material foundations of virtual existence and the inescapable material costs that underwrite it.