4 Tactile Poetic Digital Sculptures
depicting Data Colonialism
Currently on display in Sensing Naples at Compton Verney (April 2023 to April 2025)
Commissioned by Compton Verney and Unlimited, this artwork represents a postcolonial analysis of DYSPLA’s relationship with the current military and past colonial occupation of Cyprus in relation to the modern theory of Data Colonialism. Inspired by Lorenzo Vaccaro’s 17th-century busts of The Four Continents, DYSPLA have created four performative Digital Sculptures in the form of 7,000 individual pieces of A3 neon green copy paper.
Commissioned by Compton Verney and Unlimited, this artwork represents a postcolonial analysis of DYSPLA’s relationship with the current military and past colonial occupation of Cyprus in relation to the modern theory of Data Colonialism. Inspired by Lorenzo Vaccaro’s 17th-century busts of The Four Continents, DYSPLA have created four performative Digital Sculptures in the form of 7,000 individual pieces of A3 neon green copy paper.
SPECIFICATION
Artist: DYSPLA (Lennie Varvarides, Kazimir Bielecki)
Title: colonialism_V1
Year: 2024
Digital Sculptures: 4 x .gITF, 78mb (approx.)
Film: 4 x 5min (approx.), 4k, .mp4
A3 paper stack: 7000 sheets of dayglo green paper, 279x420x800mm
Billboard posters: 12 x (1x15m) blue backed billboard paper, 130gsm
Artist: DYSPLA (Lennie Varvarides, Kazimir Bielecki)
Title: colonialism_V1
Year: 2024
Digital Sculptures: 4 x .gITF, 78mb (approx.)
Film: 4 x 5min (approx.), 4k, .mp4
A3 paper stack: 7000 sheets of dayglo green paper, 279x420x800mm
Billboard posters: 12 x (1x15m) blue backed billboard paper, 130gsm
ARTISTS: DYSPLA (Lennie Varvarides & Kazimir Bielecki)
PERFORMERS: Ozioma Ihesiene (Verse 1), Maryam Noorhimli (Verse 2),
Laiza Silva Goncalves (Verse 3), Lennie Varvarides (Verse 4)
DYSPLA’s new commission represents a poetic postcolonial analysis of Lennie Varvarides’ (DYSPLA Founder) connection to colonialism as a British Cypriot. The work highlights the relationship between the current military and past colonial occupation of Cyprus, in relation to the current theory of Data Colonialism.
The physical sculpture takes the form of 7,000 pieces of A3 neon green copy paper. The digital performative sculptures are activated via a QR Code in true DYSPLA style, developed by Kazimir Bielecki (DYSPLA Creative Director and Producer). Each A3 print includes 4 volumetric portraits, (3D), of the descendants reciting one verse of a poem written by Lennie Varvarides.
The opportunity to take an A3 print home poses another question — how willing will the audiences be to participate in this extraction when the prints are limited? This calls attention further to modern forms of colonization such as surveillance capitalism.
The work playfully provokes the concept of a colonizer as someone who takes something they consider free regardless of depleting resources or consequence.Read Full Article by Lennie Varvarides by clicking link here.