<< back | Digital Data Transmission
Sep 2026
I was having an emotional conversation with my mother in my studio, speaking to her through my phone on loudspeaker, when Mark kindly interrupted us to discuss his ongoing project. He shared his ideas about incorporating more cables and chairs into his work and explained how he intended to use them.
Our conversation naturally shifted towards Ai Weiwei’s solo exhibition, particularly his innovative use of metal. I remembered how Ai Weiwei had worked with material from earthquake debris in his interview with Anish Kapoor on Al Jazeera. From there, our discussion moved into the artistic process, the ways information is gathered and transmitted, and how information can sometimes be misinterpreted or transformed as it moves from one person to another. This connected strongly with Mark’s broader thinking about technology and its implications.
Throughout the conversation, my mother remained on loudspeaker. She does not speak English, so although she could hear our voices, she could not understand what Mark and I were discussing. When Mark eventually left, she asked me, “Who’s that?” I explained that he was a software engineer and an artist, and tried to describe his work and the conversation we had just had.
A few days later, I realised that the conversation had stayed with Mark. He created an artwork using tightly wrapped yellow data cables arranged horizontally across the wall, with text placed over them. When I sent my mother a photograph of the work and explained that it had emerged partly from that brief encounter in the studio, she was amazed that such an ordinary moment could become a source for an artwork.
What interested me was that she had experienced the same moment completely differently. While Mark and I were discussing art, technology, materials and information, my mother was listening from elsewhere through the loudspeaker. Unable to understand the language of the conversation, she was imagining other things. She was thinking about me, about my journey, and about how grateful she was that I was pursuing what I love. She was also thinking about St. Michael and the ways she believes his presence and protection have guided our lives.
The same conversation therefore existed differently for each of us. For Mark, it became an artistic idea. For me, it became a reflection on voice, transmission and interpretation. For my mother, it became a moment of gratitude, spirituality and reflection on her son’s journey.
When I think about Mark’s yellow cables now, I cannot see them simply as technological objects. They remind me of the phone through which my mother’s voice entered the studio, of the invisible movement of information between people, and of how something as intimate as a voice can pass through a technological system and become part of another person’s imagination.
It makes me wonder: when a voice travels through a digital medium, what exactly is transferred? Is it only information, or can something of the person their presence, emotion, memory, or meaning travel with it?
And what happens when that voice is yours?