We carry mobile phones, and laptops, and similar devices everyday. We forget that these devices operate at electromagnetic frequencies beyond basic human perception. In other words, our phones have other lives and exist in other worlds of connectivity, different from our own. New media artist Andy Doro wants to remind us of this fact, by making that other world visible, at least momentarily.
I have constructed a table which reveals the hidden electrical activity of electronic objects placed upon it. Through this interaction, people will develop a greater awareness of the invisible workings of their electronic devices and the limits of human perception… Perhaps our inability [to perceive electromagnetic] space is our repression of the dreams of electronic objects. There is a disconnect between the voice we hear over a cellphone and the raw medium which the cellphone uses to transmit sound–the two are not analogous. Table for Electronic Dreams allows these hidden dreams to become visibly apparent.
He calls what he does making electronic dreams visible, I call it a seance for the ghosts of mobile phones. (Can “seancing” be an archival practice?)
January 7, 2009 at 5:51 am
As a naturalist spirit walker, seance is a key way to note where you are both physically, existentially, emotionally and developmentally. If attention to the multiple layers of self-awareness ‘documents’ time, space and place of self, why then wouldn’t seancing of physical objects that connect us to distant times, space and place be archival? It’s all the same practice!
July 11, 2010 at 4:04 am
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