2-channel film
full HD, 9:16
video loop
*presentation on two opposing screens, site-specific installation
Throughout the past decades, phones have evolved from simple communication devices to our omnipresent and versatile digital companions, combining a variety of different applications for everyday life and specifically in the context of informative research and data storing. On the basis of a series of 6 phone models from the 2000s and 2010s, both the visual and the technological evolution of mobile phones is portrayed in a chronological documentation via continuously looping digital scans, representing the physical growth of the devices themselves as well as symbolically visualizing the expanding role they play within post-modern society.
Referencing the third chapter of Charles Darwin’s publication “On the Origin of Species”, the evolutionary principle of a “Struggle for Existence” in this context does not only refer to the species-centred competitive battle for survival itself, but also comments on humanity's modern-day pressure as individuals to constantly be present within the digital space—especially through the act of curated self-presentation on social media—as a contemporary way of proving one’s own existence to the outside world. With an installation transferring the initially digital product into physical space by replicating the immersive visuals of holographic projection, the emerging image of an incomplete reconstruction ultimately reveals the seemingly reliable virtual world as an artificial simulation, displaying the fragile nature of data storage technology and the actual state of intangibility surrounding the electronic devices we regularly depend on within our daily lives.
*While the title “Prosthetic Memory” initially refers to the eponymous concept first proposed by Alison Landsberg in her 1995 article “Prosthetic Memory: Total Recall and Blade Runner”, it is in this context also to be seen as a metaphor for humanity’s current overreliance on digital data storages and specifically on mobile phones as portable and versatile devices which have thus by now become more like an omnipresent part of ourselves rather than strictly external tools.
Based on this analogy—implying smartphones as a contemporary type of brain prosthesis opposing the multi-faceted imperfections of our internal memory system—it critically questions the general state of dependency we feel towards these electronic devices, investigating both the present conditions of this trust relationship as well as potential threats within the future underlying the actual fragility of the virtual space based on its existential intangibility.
(2024)