(Post)modern Communication: Facebook

The installation combines collected earwigs, subtly emerging from the telephone part, with quietly disturbing whispering sounds. Hints of the familiar and unfamiliar are brought together in this work, referencing the uncanny. Cognitive dissonance is formed in our simultaneous reactions of attraction coupled with curiosity, to repulsion coupled with fear. The sounds emerging from the earwigs are composed of whispered Facebook statuses, layered over each other. The words and sentences, difficult to make out throughout the looped recording, make the viewer go closer towards the work to try and discover what is being said, only to confront his or her fears. I aim for the viewer to not only question their reaction toward the materials used within this installation but to question today’s modes of communication, particularly social networking sites such as Facebook. In comparison to just hearing one voice on a telephone; we hear many often arbitrary voices all at once, and feel compelled to listen. Why?