swiping compressed filtered love (et enfin, permettre l’incontrôlable)

Installation, video (3D animation, 11:53 min.), synthetic fur, porcelain, fragrances, silicone, wax, various monitor and tablet holders, printed fabric, customized treatment tables, variable dimensions, 2019

photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
compressedfilteredlove1_fabric1_600px
compressedfilteredlove3_200DPI_600px
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
photo © Marian Luft
swiping_compressed_filtered_love9
swiping compressed filtered love (et enfin, permettre l'incontrôlable), 2019
swiping_compressed_filtered_love2
swiping_compressed_filtered_love1
swiping_compressed_filtered_love8
swiping_compressed_filtered_love6

#datingapps #oceanofthepossibles #screenbasedseduction #bestmatchingtutorials #mathematicalromance #filteredflirt #becomingsponge

Prosthesis, extensions or augmentations are important motives of my work. One of these prostheses, the smartphone, has not only become a constant companion of the human being, enabling an uninterrupted flow of information, but is also today an essential tool for the development of today’s personality. Social networks and dating applications (Tinder, OkCupid etc.) with their individual strategies of self-expression have a profound effect on the processes of identity formation and the way we come into contact with each other.

In this installation entitled: “swiping compressed filtered love (et enfin, permettre l’incontrôlable)” it is this attempt to get in contact with a potential partner that interests me. The process of screen-based seduction is of course different from a process based on the physical presence of the other. The screen allows you to control your mode of presentation. We select still images (the best ones) and reflected texts to present ourselves. On the other hand, physical presence, without control and in a spontaneous way, allows us to show a certain body language, to perceive the other’s smell and other levels of
communication.

With a deliberately feminist, slightly utopian and clearly science-fiction inspired approach, the partly 3D animated film, printed fabric and small objects explore the strategies of encounter through the filters of an algorithm and beyond language. It talks about a potential future where online seduction can be optimized by a device that simulates hormonal emissions as well as smells. The chemical messages that our bodies send to each other could be perceived by the other from a distance, adding an uncontrolled dimension to the filtered flirtation. The installation is unfolding in the room with small objects (fictional devices) and the smell they emit. A collaboration with a fragrance scientist provided two complex and almost pleasant fragrances which are near to what human skin and sweat can smell.

A bilingual video (French and English) takes us into an metaphoric ocean landscape where we zoom into a neon-lit office space. The camera circles around the desk. The ubiquity of dating application users in all spheres of our life, like in a game, is hard to avoid. The film reflects critically on social online dating mechanisms like dependency, consumerism, objectification and reduction of the body to calculable parameters, as well as our need for intimacy and encounter.

swiping compressed filtered love @ galerie Antoine-Sirois, 2022 / photo credits: François Lafrance
swiping compressed filtered love @ galerie Antoine-Sirois, 2022 / photo credits: François Lafrance
swiping compressed filtered love @ galerie Antoine-Sirois, 2022 / photo credits: François Lafrance
swiping compressed filtered love @ galerie Antoine-Sirois, 2022 / photo credits: François Lafrance