contact with a struggling device
:Special thanks to Ítalo for bringing this idea to life;
The relationship we establish with our devices is part of a much larger web that articulates different topics, from the resources mined and used to build them, our addictive, energy-intensive internet habits, programmed obsolescence meant to render them useless in a determined amount of time and what ultimately happens to electronics once we’ve replaced them. It is an entry-point to understand different dynamics of contemporary culture and the burden we are leaving for future generations. Looking at e-waste, we have more than 60 million tonnes that are expected to be produced this year alone, 50% of which will have their final destination unaccounted for. Such a lifecycle sheds light on an ongoing dynamic of exploitation and inequality that may have had a very blunt contemporary example in Elon Musk’s tweet, who replied to a question on the political instability in Bolivia - a country with some of the largest lithium reserves in the world with the phrase “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”
If devices do not exist in a vacuum, but circulate in a coordinated cultural system (Sahlins, 2004), then we must come to terms with our cultural obsession for speed and acceleration. A result of the complex dynamics behind globalization - according to Eriksen (2001) and Rosa (2013) deterritorialization and the expansion of interconnectedness are intimately tied to the acceleration of social life, while social acceleration itself takes many different forms - it was also embedded in the serpent’s egg of post-modernity, as foreshadowed by Marinetti in the Futurist Manifesto. We, as consumers, are constantly offered new series of high-speed devices, and buy into that idea, which both creates and promotes the cycle of overuse. Due to the increase of media consumption, corporations have to invent and interlink new types of technologies that are not being enabled for older generations of devices, and then we have fully functional devices that become obsolete on the shipping of a new update. These highly-valued companies are constantly altering and accelerating the abiotic web environment which leads the high-end technology sector to an overproduction / overconsumption phase.
-💻.💻,💻T💻Z💻-
The current web, as we experience it, is continually exploiting itself, each point endlessly making use of each other point on the web - much like the exploitation necessary to keep systems up and running, and investors happy.
Endlessly at war with every other point on the web, at an endless stalemate, and in endless flux. An infinite indefinability. With our research, we want to explore alternatives to digital age pollution. We want to build new emotional connections as an alternative to buying into the promise of speed of contemporaneity. Building on Milton Santos’ Ode to Slowness (2004), we believe that opening ourselves up to different speeds in order to experience reality and the beings around us, we can promote more egalitarian and sustainable networks. We believe we can do that by including devices in the conversation as ‘beings’ on their own merits as we perceive them in an attempt to cope with the speed of our times.
performed in march 2022 w/ Ítalo @ soro-soro
