A Tool for Loneliness - Please Stay Seated While the Vehicle’s in Motion

 

Exhibited in Gut Feelings 07/12/18 - 09/12/18

 

I am currently interested in the isolation that can occur through communication

devices in public spaces. Devices which initially are created to enable conversation globally instead are enabling an escalating loneliness. Developing

a need for instant gratification of response and mimicking interaction without
physicality. It is easier to talk through a screen now rather than engage with

the people that surround you. Lack of body language means it is now easier than ever to interpret the words of a friend in multiple different ways and

moods. Instead, a defensive stance can be created by the holding of a phone,
a protective barrier from the conversation of a physical person, an avoidance
of awkwardness.

Adaptions to this body language have meant that our peripherals are evolving,

with inventions such as traffic lights on the floor to enable convenient cross-
ings, there is now a new field of view. The phone is now a mediator of conversation, a transporter of words from one person to another. I am exploring this in relation to public transport as a platform of social escapism, a non-space.
Space where it is acceptable not to acknowledge the person next to you,
where the closest to a relationship is the recognition of someone who routinely
gets the same transport as you. A place where someone talking to you is an
unacceptable discomfort.

 

Transport is a place where you are still for a set period of time yet are

continuously moving. A place of reflection of where you have been and preparation

for where you are going, a restorative period. It is also a period of confrontation, time to overinterpret and seek outside communication and distraction.

 

Is this a routine that enables transformation and recollection or does it add to
isolation?
In this work, a fictional conversation takes place through the platform of a
phone, while on a bus, the act of overthinking begins and through one mind
we hear two perspectives. Peripherals play an important role, exploring what
is seen routinely but not appreciated.