Going viral: Coronavirus has a lot to teach us about the spread of ideas

In May of last year, Chinese artist Guo O Dong made headlines when he sold a simple black Samsung computer to an undisclosed buyer for more than $1.3 million at auction. The computer-as-artwork was named The Persistence of Chaos and came loaded with six of what, at the time, were the world's most dangerous computer viruses: trojans, worms, ransomeware and malware. The viruses were estimated to have caused at least $95 billion in damage worldwide.

Apparently all living things are infected with viruses

A disclaimer on the auction lot read: “By submitting a bid you agree and acknowledge that you’re purchasing this work as a piece of art or for academic reasons, and have no intention of disseminating any malware” which seems like a lazy cop-out from a security/responsibility perspective, but that’s a different story.

With the outbreak of coronavirus, China is in the news for viruses once again. Watching the spread, the attempts to quarantine, and following the medical discussions about epidemiology, I'm acutely reminded of that other use of the term "going viral", as a goal for amplifying the spread of ideas, actions or witty cat memes via social media. In these terms, going viral follows the same pattern, even though one is deliberate, while the other entirely involuntary.

Super-spreaders

New situations, such as coronavirus, bring new jargon into common use. Now we have super-spreaders. Super-spreaders are those who transmit germs faster. Scientists are working to discover how this happens in the case of disease; but when it comes to viral ideas, it’s simple. Super-spreaders are those who are able to spread ideas and beliefs far faster than normal: whether that is through their own pre-existing fame, access to the media, an ineffable charisma, or willingness to exploit the insecurities of others.

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In terms of Brexit, Nigel Farage is a super-spreader. When it comes to mainstreaming hate speech, Katie Hopkins, Steve Bannon and Milo Yiannopolous spring to mind, alongside a coterie of wannabes trying to cash in on the process, but without the same transmission abilities.

Another artist who explored the idea of viruses was Felix Gonzalez-Torres, who died from AIDS-related complications in 1996. He made a series of 19 "candy" installations consisting of individually wrapped sweets. One of the most famous of these, Untitled (Portrait of Ross in LA), was made on the death of the artist's partner, Ross Laycock, from an AIDS-related illness in 1991. In it, 79kg of candy is heaped into a corner wall. The weight of the sweets corresponds to Laycock's ideal body weight before the disease began to waste him away.

Viewers are encouraged to help themselves to the sweets, and I have read commentaries that suggest the piece is about nourishment, generosity, loss, and also redemption and eternal life – as the artist also stipulated that the sweets should continuously be replenished. As with all good art works, the piece can, of course, be about all these things and more, but when I have seen these installations, the most overwhelming ideas they generate are about the spread of viruses.

Here, the candy is a sweet temptation. Just take one, what harm could it do? There is the frisson of transgression as you, quite literally, help yourself to a part of an artwork. There are also feelings of connection, temporary and tenuous, and the passing pleasure as you enjoy the sweet (because abstracted from the artwork, the individual candies have no value in and of themselves). And over the course of the exhibition or installation, who could possibly track where those sweets end up? How could you ever trace who the people who took them then connected with, or maybe gave them to? The candies have gone into the world, carrying with them whatever it is they embody, or possibly nothing at all.

Apparently all living things are infected with viruses. Or to put it another way, viruses are part of what we are. According to some research, about 8 per cent of human DNA is made up of viruses. In the computer game Plague Inc, which has seen an upsurge of popularity on foot of fascination and fear engendered by the coronavirus, players create and try to spread a pathogen. Ranged against the spread are the human immune system, science, social structures such as quarantines, and weaknesses within the pathogens themselves.

As people die from the current virus that is spreading the world, playing Plague Inc seems to be in a certain style of poor taste and yet it’s no wonder we’re fascinated. It is particularly salutary, and increasingly vital in societal terms, to follow that fascination and explore the similar spread of viral ideas, beliefs and hatreds (as well as witty cat memes).

Commenting on his own artwork, Guo O Dong said that “we have this fantasy that things that happen in computers can’t actually affect us, but this is absurd . . . weaponised viruses that affect power grids or public infrastructure can cause direct harm”. He may well have added weaponised ideas to that thought.