Suara AlaM's
Whispers of God
Sound Artist
Wireless
Wireless
“Are we really connected
or do we just pretend to be
donning that colored cloak
of worn phrases, repeated phrases
that fill up the ether: weightless, wireless
phrases, hollow as the tin drum
on which we pound a soft sad rhythm
that receives so many
likes we cry”
- Kamiel Choi -
Social disconnection is an objective, long-standing lack of social/family relationships and minimal participation in social activities. It is associated with negative health effects, including early mortality, and is distinct from subjective loneliness (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
In Japan they use the term Hikikomori to describe a condition/person who extremely avoids social contact, acute withdrawal from society and seeking extreme degrees of social isolation and confinement. Although the connection between modern communication technologies (such as the Internet, social media and video games) and the phenomenon is not conclusively established, those technologies are considered at least an exacerbating factor that can deepen and nurture withdrawal.
"Connecting devices, disconnecting people" (Fabio Bahia).
Excerpt from The Humanity Project:
“Put a rat in a cage and give it 2 water bottles. One is just water and one is water laced with heroin or cocaine. The rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself in a couple of weeks. That is our theory of addiction.
Bruce comes along in the ’70s and said, “Well, hang on. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It has nothing to do. Let’s try this a bit differently.”
So he built Rat Park, and Rat Park is like heaven for rats. Everything a rat could want is in Rat Park. Lovely food. Lots of sex. Other rats to befriend. Colored balls. Plus both water bottles, one with water and one with drugged water.
But here’s what's fascinating: In Rat Park, they don’t like the drugged water. They hardly use it. None of them overdose. None of them use in a way that looks like compulsion or addiction.
What Bruce did shows that both the right-wing and left-wing theories of addiction are wrong. The right-wing theory is that it’s a moral failing, you’re a hedonist, you party too hard. The left-wing theory is that it takes you over, your brain is hijacked. Bruce says it’s not your morality, it’s not your brain; it’s your cage. Addiction is largely an adaptation to your environment.
Now, we created a society where significant numbers of us can't bear to be present in our lives without being on something, drink, drugs, sex, shopping... We’ve created a hyperconsumerist, hyperindividualist, isolated world that is, for many of us, more like the first cage than the bonded, connected cages we need.
The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And our whole society, the engine of it, is geared toward making us connect with things, not people. You are not a good consumer citizen if you spend your time bonding with the people around you and not stuff. In fact, we are trained from a young age to focus our hopes, dreams, and ambitions on things to buy and consume. Drug addiction is a subset of that."
- Johann Hari -
Wireless shows two hands trying to connect with each other at a distance. My inspiration came from the fresco painting of Michelangelo The creation of Adam. In that work the gap is signifying the spark of life being passed to humanity. With my sculpture I want to revive that sparkle of interaction with the Source and our social interaction with our friends and family, our neighbours, colleguas, and everyone else around us, so that we feel supported and part of the whole.
Nowadays we seem so disconnected from everything that life should be; everything that life is. Not only disconnected from nature itself, but also from humanity. Our body breathes, but our soul is hardly alive. Even though it has never been easier to connect with people from all over the world, at the same time, we have never become so estranged from our originality and we're focused on ourselves like never before.
This contradiction is made visible in my work: we do not even need wired cables anymore to get connected, but still there is this gap, while quite often wireless connection through modern communication like social media is not the real thing and can make us feel isolated/not in contact with human society. Therefore the sculpture is called Wireless, even though it is completely made out of wire. I want to carry out the message that we should reconnect with each other without any devices that used to be cabled.
I used copper wire like the inside of a cable (per hand five; one for each finger), and I wound metal wire around it. Each hand has all it needs to make the connection because it is made just like the connecting communication cables. It is both a sender and receiver. The hands are stretched out towards each other with fingers trying to touch, as the willing and need of contact and touch is there. In this way I visualize hope, so we can reach out to each other again in humane ways with compassion and also reconnect to the Source of where we all come from.
Keywords: (dis)Connection, Modern Communication, Social Media, Internet, Withdrawal, Isolation
Dimensions:
100cm x 24cm x 47cm
Technique and used material
wire sculpting (metal and copper); black graphite stone