Ronin Cho gives weight to the unseen. The London-based artist takes on complex concepts with simple, easy to understand frameworks that have a way of demystifying things in a philosophical way. He’s taken digital materials and given them an imposing, physical presence, provoking viewers to consciously construct their unconscious. He’s negotiated the value of the immaterial through an installation that captures and distills a brief, fleeting, but deeply meaningful action, such as a door knock.His latest interactive sculpture, ALONE TOGETHER, combines a mobile phone signal detector, a vibrator and a micro-processor into a neat and pointed critique of our debilitating dependency on mobile communication. The sculpture is an electric chair with two transparent arms strapped onto the armrests. One of these arms holds a smartphone. From texts messages to emails to phone calls, when users use their phones near the sculpture, the phone detector captures the signal. The signals then trigger the vibrator to simulate the sound and vibrations of electric execution.
Each call, tweet or text message seems to trigger a silent death, as if we’re slowly killing something within ourselves, or perhaps killing the relationships we have with those who are physically present around us. The sculpture seems to imply an inability to be satisfied with proximal, face-to-face communication. It seems a little bit extreme, but we can sort of see where he’s coming from. How many times have we been out to lunch or sitting for coffee with a friend, frantically checking Facebook status updates, email, and so on, rather than conversing with the person right in front of us? We crave to be stimulated from situations that are never presently near. If nothing else, Cho presents a nice reminder of what we’re potentially risking by continuing to live alone together.
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