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Friction in Technology (Re-distance of Technology),  2017

Friction Technology project unfold in series, 'Re-distance of Technology' highlights the pace at which technology is increasingly part of our everyday bodily experience. It speculates on how this will continue to grow into an ever more complicated hybridity, where our bodies become an intrinsic part of the technology we use, such as bodies as Internet signal insulators or the speed of internet being decided by the proximity between the device and the user. The closer your phone gets, the lower the Internet speed. Clever as we are, we build tools to hack this limitation. Tie your phone to a big balloon if you’re into music, use a selfie stick with telescope to watch online movies or yo-yo your precious device out the window for heavy downloads.

In this parallel world, one is forced to question our relationship with technology and the level of intimacy we wish to share with the devices on which we so often rely. It also challenges the norm of our usage with technology inventions. Is it possible to break the control of device which in disguise of convenience or efficiency? Is it possible to alter the device invention into more human-needed? What our social interaction changed in this scenario, are we going to put down our phone to talk with each other face to face? or on the opposite, we try to run away each other due to other’s body are blocking our Internet signals. To create a welcome distance and enough space to rethink our relationship with technology and bring up the conversation.

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Projectdata

mixed media installations

images by

Femke Rijerman and Timothy Liu