talking about the decadence of silk and how the tape is distorted now
this has been a project about humans on the internet, the ways in which we live temporarily in intsagram stories and snapchats, how we tell our stories by shouting at our audience then throwing away the evidence. the temporary spaces we inhabit and the fleeting importance of the latest technology.
Originally this piece began when I was examining Facebook statuses as non-permanent digital statements and turning them into permanent physical things. The initial plan with this installation was to focus on the idea of the marriage between nature + technology, the fresh and the synthetic - but as I re-read the poem I wrote and re-evaluated the choices I was making with my props and themes, I realised that really I was talking about who we are online in a much more metaphorical sense. We all have this desire to own the space we take up, and through social media we get the confirmation we need that this is our space and this will be new tomorrow.
Essentially I filled a room with crap: things people don't need, things we throw away, things that have a short life span. These objects became the physical representation of my written piece, as they were things I had found - some of which I had thought about more than others - and given more importance to than originally intended. A glittery plastic apple is a temporary Christmas decoration outside of this artwork, in January it won't hold the same purpose - but within this artwork it has a purpose simply by existing, in being it's usual crappy self 24/7 and holding more gravity than it was supposed to when on sale at Wilko's.
The importance of the tape player lies in the theme of nostalgia, and how not only are our representations of ourselves online ever-changing, but the means with which we document ourselves are changing too. Additionally, by giving a digital sound piece a physical body I have shifted its permanence and, in a way, reversed the idea of an instagram story. When we put ourselves online we move from a physical human to a version of ourselves made up of pixels and data, when a digital collection of sounds is put onto a solid tape it is now a physical being.
An interesting aspect of this piece was the participation, and the comments I received from people who spent the 5 minutes in the room listening to the sound piece.
comments on the piece: like walking into another world
summed up the early noughties internet
The two major obstacles I faced in the duration of this installation were:
1.) Hesitation. People's uncertainty as to whether they were allowed in the room or if it was just to be seen through the window. I personally noticed a few times that people were craning their neck to see around the room from the outside, without opening the door, but once I spoke to friends from my studio about it they told me they had seen a few people enter. To improve on this, next time I would make the participation aspect more obvious - I did put a sign on the door but I feel perhaps an actual prompt from me would make people feel more invited? If I asked them face to face and told them about it? I was unapologetic about inhabiting the space but was I still nervous about it? Next time I aim to be more bold in my own self-advertising.
I put together a film of s(crap)s, however due to copyright on the song used in the background I have not been able to upload it to YouTube, and the file is too big to upload directly onto this blog. In the film I try to capture the room to the best of my ability, but I really feel the best effect was felt when actually standing in the room with the door closed.
This is what I wrote after taking s(crap)s down on Thursday:
2.) Rewinding the tape - quite a few times that I went into the room to check up on everything, the tape had been left running, meaning it had to be rewound. I amended the sign I wrote next to the tape player, so the audience were asked to stop the tape once finished listening, but some people were confused as to how the player actually worked as it had been a long time since they had used one, if ever. I enjoyed the idea of audience labour, and the fact that they were required to do something in order for the piece to work, so I am not sure if I would change how I did this. Instead I could have made the instructions more clear, or perhaps mentioned to people as they went in what was required of them.
I also feel that more people would have ventured into the room had it been up longer, but I had to take it all down the day after it was installed. This rapid existence itself could be seen as an additional commentary on our temporary online diaries and the elaborate homes we have created for ourselvesthere.
Overall I am very pleased with the outcome of my installation project !!! (Today I got called a true artist, I put a whole chunk of myself in a cupboard for anyone to have a look at, I have to deal with a lot recently - this is my release + my safety net / happy place).
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