【Online Artist Talk】
Surfing｜No Distance
Date | Saturday, September 5th, 2026 · 10:30 AM–12:00 PM (UTC+8)
Venue | Online

Speaker |  Federico PÉREZ VILLORO
Panelist | Lisa BLACKMORE
Moderator | Emily Hsiang-Yun HUANG
90min + Q&A

Registration｜Please register on the Vanishing Acts exhibition page.

Introduction
In this talk, Federico PÉREZ VILLORO and Lisa BLACKMORE will discuss the project No Distance, which gathers the precise coordinates of submarine cables that power the global internet and machine learning networks, constructing an archive of satellite images that reveal the geological imprints these infrastructures leave on the seabed. By discussing the methods and technical procedures used to locate these sites, the speakers invite us to consider whether digital tools can be turned against their own logic to loosen the economic orders they serve, while reflecting on how we participate in (and are technically complicit with) vast modern systems of resource extraction

The exact locations of submarine cables have long been kept secret by governments and corporate entities. Beyond exposing the neocolonial power structures built around data transmission and algorithmic efficiency, the routing of these cables provides crucial clues for communities and researchers to anticipate the future deployment of data centers and assess their threats to local ecosystems.

This conversation will focus on the ongoing tension between the programmed opacity of computational technologies and the visibility of mega-infrastructures as a political landscape, exploring how digital infrastructure shapes contemporary relationships among power, the environment, and the production of knowledge itself.


Speaker | Federico PÉREZ VILLORO
Federico PÉREZ VILLORO is an artist and researcher living and working in Mexico City. Through texts, installations, videos, and performances, Federico explores how state, corporate, and institutional power materializes via the strategic use of information technologies. His recent work addresses the industrialization of water as an example of technical operativity imposed on living ecosystems.

In 2023, he received the Jumex Grant Program Award and the C/Change Fellowship (Goethe-Institut/Gray Area). Residencies include Pivô Pesquisa (2023), OCAT Shenzhen (2019), and TBA21 (current, researching Caribbean water access). He has taught at RISD and CCA, lectured at MIT, NYU, ETH Zurich, Rutgers, CalArts, The New School, UNAM, Escuela de Artes Jalisco, and Hongik University. In 2019, he founded Materia Abierta, a summer school on theory, art, and technology in Mexico City. Federico holds an MFA from RISD (2013).
https://federicoperezvilloro.com

Panelist | Lisa BLACKMORE
Lisa BLACKMORE is Professor of Spanish and Faculty Director of the Digital Humanities Center at the University of Virginia. In 2019 she founded entre—ríos (entre-rios.net) as a confluence of arts-led projects exploring continuities between bodies of water, human bodies, and territories. entre—ríos creates online and in-person channels to connect through water, co-creating exhibitions, publications, public programs, workshops, and publications with researchers, artists, and communities. 

BLACKMORE's recent publications include “Art for the Hydrocommons” Environmental Humanities (2025) and Hydrocommons Cultures: Art, Pedagogy and Practices of Care Across the Americas, LA ESCUELA__JOURNAL (2024). Her second monograph, Hydrocommoning: Water, Art, and Collective Action in Latin America, is forthcoming from University of Minnesota Press in Spring 2027.


Moderator | Emily Hsiang-Yun HUANG
Hsiang-Yun Huang is a researcher and visual artist from Taiwan. Her research interests focus on the relationship between body and technology from the perspective of postcolonialism, cyberfeminism, digital materialism and critical AI. Projects she has curated include Net.Open public program and www.counterarchive.commons at Taipei Fine Arts Museum, IMPAKT Festival-Our Terms, Our Conditions, Taipei Digital Art Festival-Fake It Real, and Embodied Interface. Her dance films often derived from her poetry on the vulnerability of (non-)human existence, with a focus on collective mourning and digital intimacy. She is supported by the Mondriaan Artist Start Grant(NL) and National Culture and Arts Foundation(TW). Her works have been exhibited at the Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art, Cinedance Festival at Eye Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, Ars Electronica, Kikk Festival, and panke.gallery.  
https://linktr.ee/flyun


｜Other Notes｜Once registered, you will receive an automatic confirmation email. If you do not receive it, please check your Spam or Promotions folder. The online link will be emailed to registrants on September 2nd.