exonemo: 0 to 1 / 1 to 0
Feb 6–Nov 18, 2019
exonemo: 0 to 1 / 1 to 0
exonemo, screenshot of 0 to 1 / 1 to 0 at sunrise, 2019
In its project 0 to 1 / 1 to 0, the artist duo known as exonemo uses the passage between night and day to explore the digital and natural environments we inhabit. Every day at sunrise and sunset, webpages viewed on whitney.org slowly recede into the browser window to reveal a laptop screen, and beyond that, the sun rising or setting over Manhattan. The webpages are still functional in their minimized state, but the doubling of the screen calls attention to the hardware through which users experience whitney.org. In the natural world, the two- to three-minute change between night and day marks a powerful yet gradual transition that has no equivalent in the digital space, where the switch between the binary code of 0’s and 1’s is discontinuous. With its project, exonemo turns the daily moments of sunrise and sunset into a transition between both the digital and natural environments, highlighting the interconnectedness of the digital and natural world as well as their fundamental differences.
The Japanese artist duo exonemo creates experimental projects that explore the paradoxes of the digital and analog environments. Formed by Kensuke Sembo (b. 1972; Tokyo, Japan) and Yae Akaiwa (b. 1973; Fukuoka, Japan) in 1996, exonemo has explored human physicality and emotions in the network age through critical and humorous approaches.
Their work has been featured in group and solo exhibitions worldwide, including a major solo show at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (2020). Their awards include the Prix Ars Electronica 2006 Golden Nica and the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs’ 2021 Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists. Since 2012 they have organized the “Internet Yami-Ichi,” a large flea market that has taken place in Tokyo and New York that makes the often immaterial flotsam of cyberspace tangible in online-themed objects. The artists have lived and worked in New York since 2015.
Sunrise/Sunset
Sunrise/Sunset was a series of internet art projects that marked sunset and sunrise in New York City every day from 2009 to 2024. All were commissioned by the Whitney specifically for whitney.org, each project unfolding over a time frame of ten to thirty seconds. Indicating the switch from day to night and vice versa in one specific location, Sunrise/Sunset projects played with the perception of time and space, underscoring the physical location of the Whitney and the global accessibility of virtual environments.
artport
View more on artport, the Whitney Museum's portal to internet art and its online gallery space for commissions of net art.