AKNEYE
Data Materiality | Post Irony | Physical to Digital
PROJECT TYPE
Phygital Art | Multidisciplinary Research
ARTISTS
Vanane Borian & Meyer Gal (RABBITVOLLK)
START DATE
2023
RESEARCH FIELD
Tokenization | Material–Digital Ontologies | Post Irony
STATUS
Phase 1 – Finished / Phase 2 – Finished
LOCATION
Yerevan, Armenia | Venice, Italy | Malta | Dubai
01 — THE CONCEPT
Surveillance, Data Materiality, and the Phygital Gaze
AKNEYE’s series by RABBITVOLK, “The Big Brother is Watching,” reflects on surveillance capitalism and the pervasive tracking systems embedded in modern life. Each eye-object stands in for the unseen networks that monitor our actions, harvest personal data, and construct behavioral profiles. The works materialize the constant gaze of digital observation. By tokenizing physical sculpture, AKNEYE questions the relationship between matter, data, and existence in technological culture.
The first phase (2023) introduced reflective and light-absorbing sculptural eyes, each embodying different states of visibility and erasure. A digital phase extended the work into tokenized artworks, preserved online as persistent data-objects. The project reveals the tension between physical presence and digital replication—how surveillance reshapes identity, agency, and the experience of being seen within algorithmic infrastructures.
02 — THE RESEARCH
Observation Systems, Datafication & Posthuman Agency
The research interrogates the mechanisms through which modern technologies watch, record, and reproduce human life. Reflective sculptural eyes embody the logic of the machine gaze—mirroring the viewer while implicating them in systems of constant observation. Light-absorbing eyes represent the invisible dimension of surveillance: data collected in darkness, without awareness or reciprocity. The digital phase introduces the idea of data-twins—digital replicas that persist independently of their physical counterparts. This framework intersects with posthuman and transhuman theories, raising core questions: What does existence mean when identity can be duplicated as data? Does digital preservation offer continuity, or merely a simulation of presence? How does surveillance shift agency, autonomy, and the boundaries of the self?
03 — THE PROCESS
The project unfolds through two interconnected processes:
Physical Fabrication:
Sculptural eyes are produced using reflective metallic surfaces and ultra-black coatings, creating extreme optical behaviors—mirroring, distortion, disappearance. These materials embody how observation systems reveal or conceal information.
Digital Tokenization:
Each physical eye is transformed into a digital artwork, generating a parallel existence governed by data logic rather than material constraints. Together, these processes create a dual timeline in which matter and data evolve as interconnected yet autonomous entities.
04 — THE INSTALLATION
A Phygital Field of Observation
The installation presents AKNEYE sculptures as an environment of reciprocal watching. Reflective eyes return the viewer’s gaze, turning them into both observer and observed. Black, light-absorbing eyes symbolize hidden data flows—information harvested without visibility. Rather than spectacle, the space offers a contemplative encounter with the mechanisms of surveillance, asking viewers to confront how technological infrastructures shape perception, agency, and the boundaries of presence.
05 — IMPACT & OUTCOMES
Revealing Data as Material
Demonstrates how digital systems extract, transform, and reconfigure physical existence into measurable units.
Invisible Infrastructures
Makes visible the networks of surveillance that operate beyond human perception.
.
Redefining Presence and Identity
Explores how digital replicas, tokenization, and algorithmic observation alter the meaning of selfhood.
Bridging Art and Technology
Unites material making and data-driven research within the frameworks of physics, digital ontology, and posthumanism.