琥珀纪 Ambered: The Techno Past We Left Behind No.1
2024
Epoxy resin, pigment, waste discs,
disassembled parts of scrapped smart watches
15x7 cm
During field research in Huaqiangbei, Shenzhen, and Guiyu, in the Chaoshan region, Dai Shengjie collected a large number of disassembled parts from obsolete smartwatches and outdated optical discs—once cutting-edge technologies that have been swiftly abandoned due to rapid innovation. These objects, now stripped of their functionality and economic value, have become "electronic relics"—forgotten remains of a technological past. Like expired cakes, they have transitioned from coveted consumer products to useless detritus, quietly accumulating and eroding over time. In a sense, they have entered a state of silent stasis, fossilizing into a kind of “amber” form—no longer propelled by time, but suspended in a forgotten temporal stratum.
This material transformation is not merely the endpoint of a product’s life cycle, but reveals a deeper process of “media metabolism.” Just as minerals undergo endless cycles of geological renewal, technological media in the age of the Anthropocene are subjected to an accelerated loop of birth and decay: extracted from the earth, precisely engineered, mass-produced, consumed, discarded, and ultimately deposited as e-waste. Some end up dismantled in the densely packed workshops of Guiyu; others drift with ocean currents to settle beside coral reefs in the depths of the Pacific, becoming the new fossils of a receding digital civilization.
在深圳华强北和潮汕贵屿的田野调研过程中，戴圣杰收集了大量随着电子产品更新换代而被淘汰的智能手表拆解零件，它们如今因技术演进而迅速退场，成为无人问津的“电子遗物”，失去了被社会赋予的使用价值和经济价值，如同“过期的蛋糕”，在时间的流逝中从炙手可热的消费品沦为无用之物，静静地堆积、风化。某种意义上，在无声中凝结、沉淀，仿佛进入了“琥珀化”的状态——时间不再推动它们向前，而是将其固定在一个被遗忘的时空层中。
这种物质状态的转变，不仅是电子产品生命周期的终点，也揭示出一种更为深层的“媒介代谢”过程。正如矿物通过漫长的地质演化在地壳中不断循环再生，技术媒介也在“人类世”这一新地质纪元中，经历着一场激烈而加速的生命周期循环：从资源的开采与精密的工业加工，到产品化、消费、淘汰，再最终以电子废料的形式沉积。它们或被拆解在贵屿那密密麻麻的家庭作坊中，或随洋流飘向太平洋深处的珊瑚礁边，成为数字文明退潮后遗留下来的“新化石”。