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DE-ALGO ID #01000110
De-Algorithmized Identity No. 01000110

by Igor Štromajer
[test exhibition]
📍 forest
8-28 February 2026

[TikTok video]

Forest Intervention

Location & Context: The exhibition is situated deep within a forest, positioned at one of the rotating axis of Europe, where human presence is rare to non-existent, characterized by a lack of infrastructure, the absence of maintained paths, and an a-semiotic indifference to human-centric art protocols.

The Object: The central element is a de-digitalized sculptural installation derived from Štromajer‘s social media profile picture. Since 2014, he has used various iterations of the same profile image across all his social media accounts.

– Materiality: The image has been translated into a sculpture, a three-dimensional, analog form using industrial materials.

– Scale: The proportions are calibrated to exist in a 1:1 ratio with the surrounding environment, ensuring the object integrates into the forest landscape rather than dominating it.

Timing: The timing, February, is critical. The transitional state of the flora, the cold atmosphere, and the lingering patches of snow among the mud and dampness provide a neutral, non-decorative backdrop. Rather than standing in contrast to its surroundings, the object integrates into this grey light and saturation. It dissolves into the void of the late-winter forest, becoming a seamless part of the landscape’s stillness and material weight.

Spatial Configuration

– Placement: The sculpture is positioned within a cluster of non-human entities and indifferent, non-artistic matter (trees, rocks, undergrowth). Its placement mimics the formal logic of an exhibition space but is fundamentally devoid of any artistic infrastructure. To the forest, Štromajer‘s sculpture is not a work of art, but merely another object with a specific mass and temperature. A tree does not touch it with admiration, it rubs against it simply because it occupies space. Indifferent matter does not attempt to read the sculpture. To a rock, this object means nothing. This silence, this total unresponsiveness of the environment to artistic intent, is what definitively de-digitalizes the sculpture. When matter is indifferent, the object finally becomes autonomous. It no longer needs to perform. In a gallery, the object is a slave to the visitor’s gaze. In an indifferent forest, it simply is.

– Access: There are no markers, signs, or directions provided.

– Absence of Protocol: The exhibition does not have an opening or a designated viewing protocol for human visitors, nor does it provide one for non-human entities. It does not seek an audience, it merely occupies space.

Non-Human Interaction

The exhibition is structured to exist primarily for the environment, without the requirement of being seen.

– Analog Persistence: The object exists in a state of total disconnect from the human feedback loop. It stands as a physical remainder of a digital identity that has ceased to transmit, in a space that no longer requires interpretation.

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Digital Oxymoron
group show
Digitalni oksimoron
22 November – 8 December 2023

GT22, Maribor
curator: Irena Borić
producer: Sonda Foundation

Igor Štromajer presents his new work:
Quantum Dawn or Transcending Political Anxiety
ㄴ (Non)Data Traps

[20 mousetraps for non-mice]

Kvantna zarja ali Preseganje politične tesnobe
ㄴ (ne)podatkolovke

[mišnice: 20 mišelovk za nemiši]

· artists: Format C (Dina & Vedran Gligo), Hrvoje Hiršl, Petra Mrša, Toni Soprano Meneglejte, Andrej Škufca, Igor Štromajer, Ivana Tkalčić

»The exhibition focuses on the materiality of the digital and examines the sense of intangibility that resides somewhere in the speed of a web page load, the reliability of an image stored in the cloud, or the temporary sense of intimacy of a chat that takes place over corporate servers. The screen before us offers immersive worlds where colours, speeds, processing power and storage processes intertwine, while masking the fact that it owes its existence and functioning to metals and minerals. The virtual can easily appear immaterial, as it is a virtual space beyond the keyboard, even though it is a mechanism based on physical premises and has concrete consequences for the environment and society. The dependence of media technology on various geological materials, geophysical forces and vast global networks of energy and supply chains is not obvious. The backdrop of the production and operation of digital technologies supporting complex economic, social and political systems is successfully obscured by ever smaller and more portable digital equipment. But, as in the book Digital Rubbish. A natural history of electronics, professor and researcher Jennifer Gabrys points out, “from silicon to microchip, and from microchip to underground contamination, a complex series of mutations occur that allow electronic technologies to evolve.” As we know, microchips made of silicon are actually the hardware that allows information to be transmitted in the form of electrical signals, or on-off signals. The transmission of information into bits or binary units, where electrical pulses are involved, is based on this very composite of silicon, chemicals, metals, plastics and energy. It is therefore clear that a huge amount of (natural) materials and resources are needed to create the virtual. At the same time, the narrative of the virtuality of the digital is conditioned and influenced by the online exchange and circulation of capital. End-users often fail to understand that digital waste is not only hardware and computer monitors, but also has environmental, social, political and economic consequences. Precisely because the extent of these consequences is not obvious, the exhibition explores the different poetics and politics of digital technologies from our side of the screen.«

— Irena Borić, curator

»In Quantum Dawn or Transcending Political Anxiety – (Non)Data Traps (2023), Igor Štromajer establishes a humorous dialogue by placing twenty mousetraps in the atypical exhibition space of GT22. Mousetraps everywhere, but not for mice. Like the miniature servers in their cages, the mousetraps are miniature terrariums with bio- and electronic parts (chips, cables, computer parts), and the artist questions our position in relation to the predicaments of new technologies. The term ‘quantum dawn’ also refers to a series of cyber-security exercises that allow financial institutions and the sector as a whole to practice and improve coordination with key industry and government partners to keep the financial market functioning in the event of a systemic cyber-attack. On the other hand, the term ‘non-data’ does not mean that there is no data, but is a physical term and is used in quantum physics to refer to another state of data, as every data has its opposite, i.e. non-data.«

— Irena Borić, curator

Continue reading “Digital Oxymoron · Quantum Dawn”