Decay of the Great Digital Dream by Emma Pham, 2025-2026
Transcript
This artwork is titled Decay of the Great Digital Dream by Emma Pham. It was made in 2025 and 2026. This artwork consists of three videos, all looped. Each video is approximately 30 seconds in duration. They are presented on three individual monitors. The dimensions of the monitors are 70cm high by 1.2 metres wide. Two of the monitors will sit directly side by side. The third monitor will sit directly below in the centre. Each monitor will be accompanied by a set of headphones.
One main animated character is presented across three monitors in different background settings. This character is called Aero_Girl99. She is a cartoon in the style of Japanese Anime, with a largely drawn head on a figure wearing slender clothing.
The outline of Aero_Girl99 is mostly in blue. She has green hair with a fringe. She also has two long blue plaits, one on each side of her head. She has big yellow-brown eyes, a button nose, with pink circles on her cheeks – like blush - and a small light brown line for her mouth. She wears a pair of thin, silver, oval glasses.
There is a small grey cog in her hair. A cog is a flat disc shape with a hole in the centre and grooves around the edges.
She is wearing a blue short-sleeve shirt with a collar, with a white jumpsuit over the top. She is wearing matching white boots. There are two blue circles on each boot, with one circle placed on the left and another on the right of each boot. There is another grey cog on the front of Aero_Girl99’s white dress however the middle of the cog is filled in with a green colour which is a darker green tone towards the outside edges of the circle and lighter towards the middle. At the top of the cog, there is a thin grey line which connects up into the collar of Aero_Girl99.
There is a different background in each video made up of a different photograph from the real world. On top of each photograph, there are animated symbols which are randomly placed all around the background.
In the first video, the background is a photograph of a park filled with trees and grass. On top of this background, and surrounding Aero_Girl99, are a range of animated images, including a butterfly, an old-school laptop, and a pair of flowers growing out of an iPhone. Towards the bottom-middle of the frame, there is a pink chat bubble where texts from Aero_Girl99 appear. The first text message says, ‘Wow hi! This is a nice place.’ A full transcript of Aero_Girl99’s text messages in this video can be found here. Accompanying the visuals is a high-pitched soundtrack which has a calming and hopeful energy. The artist, Emma Pham, has stated that this first work explores the internet idealism of the past. This video will be placed on a monitor, positioned on the top-left.
The second video will be presented on a monitor on the right. Again, Aero_Girl99 is the main character however, in this work, the background is a photograph of the ocean. The water is still and there is a blue sky with white clouds above. The symbols in this work include an apple core, a magnifying glass in front of a laptop, and an eye with a purple iris with white light coming out of the centre of it. In this work, one of the texts from Aero_Girl99 says, ‘things aren’t functioning the way they used to.’ A full transcript of Aero_Girl99’s text messages in this video can be found here. The soundtrack for this work combines typical beach sounds, such as birds squawking, with a note which conveys an uneasiness running through the entire video. Emma Pham comments that this work grapples with our present reckoning with technology and its entanglement with systems of power.
Finally, the third video is presented on a monitor positioned underneath the first two monitors, centred in the middle. In this artwork, Aero_Girl99 is surrounded by an image of a train station where a sun is setting over a suburban landscape. In this work, Aero_Girl99 is small and towards the centre of the photograph there is a large version of the green cog. In yellow-orange writing, like the sunset behind her, are the words ‘the spirit of the people is greater than Man’s technology.’ This is a quote which was said by the Black Panther member Huey P Newtown. Aero_Girl99’s first text in this work states ‘A burning sunset floods the carriage interior, enticing you to look up, imploring you to be present.’ A full transcript of Aero_Girl99’s text messages in this video can be found here. The soundtrack for this video is similar to the first in that it is high-pitched and calm, however it is more melodic and there is the presence of a sound like a windchime twinkling in the breeze. Emma Pham notes that this video ruminates on what we can learn and rebuild from lost digital futures.
Emma Pham notes that the artwork Decay of the Great Digital Dream explores the way digital platforms, once lauded for their promise of a brighter future, are gradually devolving into addictive, dysfunctional wastelands. It also questions ways forward through this digital wasteland when our escape has been rendered collectively unfeasible, with many remaining heavily dependent on these platforms to continue learning, spreading information, and resisting power on. Aero_Girl99 is a symbol of the “lost futures” that technology was intended to lead us towards.
Emma Pham also shared that the green cog on her outfit is featured as a portal which she uses to weave in and out of the digital and physical worlds, picking up only what is needed. She carries the “lost futures” with her - not as a need to return to the past, but to see what can be learnt from it, and to build anew.
Emma Pham is an artist and arts worker based on Dharug and Dharawal lands in South-West Sydney. Her practice revolves around storytelling and narrative, often through game-inspired video work and digital animation. Using nostalgia as a whimsical point of departure, her practice wrestles with contested histories from a de-colonial and post-colonial perspective, and ideas of inherited histories.