The duo team Bang&Lee (Jayoung BANG, Yunjun LEE) investigates facts about communication devices in regard to the notion of technology and authority that do not always co incide to form a relationship. For example, in Revision HistoryX, artists focus on enterprises like Google, the world’s leading Internet search engine which underwent continuous adjustments to policy. This work shows few constant passages of contents taken from Google’s policy alongside others that changed numerous times throughout its history. This consequently reveals the ambiguous direction which Google is following in recent years. Concepts on network such as ‘Openness’, ‘Transparency’ and ‘Democracy’ have been placed in the limelight due to the overriding presence of giant corporations. In particular, this is infinitely regenerating information from the Internet, which is rapidly becoming distorted or fabricated. Problems are not limited to the lack of recognition but the consistent flow of new information that rids specificity.
Their recent work, Lost in Translation deals with the process of Google’s payment system. Bang&Lee especially explore a charged service ‘Statistical Machine Translation’ and reveal that it places restrictions on free communication due to technical limitations. Artists end up paying to use the service to the satisfaction of Google requirements.° But the question remains whether a corporation can guarantee the moral level of individuality that it states.
° ‘Don’t be evil’ used to be their informal corporate slogan. Bang&Lee quotes the slogan and uses the revised version “We do no evil” in their work. No one is sure how much longer can withstand the exclusive demands of technologies.
