This is a reality where everyone is always already using the Virtual Private Network to travel between servers and nodes. In the form of a “docu-fiction,” or a “hybrid ethnographic documentary” as they say, a screen-recording video will explore the path-routes and screen-time of those who are masked, dressed in costumes, and encrypted with switchable codes in the disguise through private tunnels, lurking, indulging, surveilling, participating, and disengaging with multiple IP or wallet addresses. Different threads of narratives will evolve as we weave through these stories between servers and nodes through Virtual Private Network protocols, be it a love story, or a conflicting journey that ends up in war. We will follow virtual lives who, not merely do so for effective or entertainment purposes such as simply hopping in proxy for a better network performance or binging your favorite drama from another land, but urgently choose to cross-server or cross-node for survival and necessity—in a nuanced lens delving into cultural and sociopolitical realities between in fact much more divided internet systems and geo-political borders—for those who cannot choose to permanently join any communities, for those who sense an inevitable desire to parasitically latch on to familiarity and privacy as ways to build connections, and for those who hesitate to comply to one protocol yet relying on some.
We are boarding and riding with Virtual Private Network protocols: we’re all fresh-off-the-boat (FOBs) this time. Meanwhile, this video work will begin with reflecting on its own image-making protocols before delving into the study of Virtual Private Network protocols and those alike, for both attempt at moving virtually in illusion and uncanniness. The video will also be experimented with its audiovisual protocols to evolve and iterate live in real-time with the changing virtual and private networks. By the end of the day, the way this video can be viewed will also be played with a layer of encryption. Perhaps only for those who hold the public key, or else…?