Morning alarms. One-touch Amazon hauls. Emails in the parking lot when the traffic threatens to swallow you whole. Boon or bane, there’s no denying that screens make most things possible—even at the cost of our privacy.
This was the concept behind urban artist ’s monumental , showcased between the 3rd and 5th of February, at Llum BCN Festival 2023, in . Titled ‘Monolith’, the psychedelic audio-visual experience was delivered through a towering rectangular screen characterised by a haunting red glow. A kaleidoscope of light, sound and motion attempted to probe the evolution of digital screens and technology and how they are snaking their way deeper and deeper into our personal information.
Concerns confronted by Monolith were posed as a series of questions: are we already in the time when humans become data? How will we confront the integration of bodies and devices? Is this the last generation of humans who are not digitally transformed?
The installation nods to Stanley Kubrick’s famous 2001 film, A Space Odyssey, in which an extraterrestrial monolith falls in the hands of humans, begetting an otherworldly surge in cognitive capacity. The analogy touches on the similarities between the object in the movie and the ubiquitous screens that serve as backdrops to our daily lives.
As we lean into screens, our identities are becoming increasingly virtual, no doubt making our digital presence far greater than our physical one.
“Screens, the magical mirrors in which we build our personas, and where an ever larger part of our reality takes form, have become integrated into our lives to an extent that, until fairly recently, was inconceivable. Their potential for the circulation of genuine ideas is obscured by a deluge of empty content. The screen gives us access to everything, yet keeps us in chains,” SpY signs off.
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