Dameng He

Dameng He lives and works in London and Beijing. He completed a BA in Gemmology and  Materials Technology at Kunming University of Science and Technology in 2018. He is currently  studying for an MA in Jewellery and Metal at the Royal College of Art in London. He has a certificate in  Jewellery Appraisal and has worked for many major jewellery companies in China such as Chow Tai  Fook and I do and others.

Dameng He is an artist who specialises in working with a variety of emerging media. Growing up  in the millennial generation, his work is not limited to traditional notions of jewellery and  handicrafts, but incorporates the technological developments he has experienced over the past twenty  years. He has been exploring the entanglement of objects with people, people with people and  objects with objects. In his recent work he has even pushed the boundaries of the physical and the virtual with a geeky spirit. His work discusses the impact of the internet, big data and algorithms on  society and people, and deals with information security, equality, privacy, segregation, polarisation,  addiction, manipulation and more. The use of Augmented Reality gives artists the opportunity to  create a new world where online connection becomes the theme and algorithms have the potential  to become gods, in combination with big data.

As a young jewellery artist, one question has always been on Dameng’s mind: what is contemporary  jewellery? Since the 1960s, many artists have chosen to use unconventional materials to make  jewellery. And they have tried to embrace new technologies to combine handcrafting with 3D  printing and CNC technology to create interesting and significant pieces. But for him, growing up  in the millennium, 3D printing is almost a decade old and CNC has been used in industrial  production for many years. He has been thinking about what contemporary art is for his generation.

For him, the most significant contemporary innovations are the internet, big data, algorithms, the combination of the virtual and the real.

Dameng’s current work and practice focuses on the impact of the internet, big data and algorithms on  society and people, and addresses information security, the sharing economy, efficiency, equality,  cyber ethics, privacy, segregation, polarisation, addiction, manipulation and more. He believes that the  advances in information technology, and the widespread use of internet-based technologies over the  last twenty years, have fundamentally changed the way our generation understands the world and other  people. One could also argue that technicians have created a new world where online connectivity  has become a theme and algorithms have the potential to combine with big data to become gods.

In his work, the world is divided into two overlapping layers of entanglement. The first layer is the  real world, symbolising visible and tangible human connections and relationships; the second layer  is the virtual world, made up of the internet, social media, big data, algorithms and so on. In the real  world, he chose to use traditional techniques to create a bronze statue. Augmented reality allows him  to create a virtual world that represents an online connection, and the way to see this virtual world  is to scan a bronze statue that exists in the real world with his phone. The bronze statue in the real  world is very clear, whereas the shape of the person in the virtual world is blurred and abstract.  When we pick up our phones, we are connected to the virtual world, we have countless friends and

confidants who are either near or far from us and about whom we know more or less, which  often gives us the false impression that we live in a perfect community. But when we put our phones  down and disconnect, what is left around us? Nothing! Dameng has tried to use this contrast between  reality and the virtual world to illustrate how people are more adept at carving out silos of cultural  and social cohesion in our contemporary internet-based life.