A Virtual Closeness

For the digitally tethered, life is at the intersection of the virtual and the physical. Experience is continually tempered through a stream of simultaneous meta-interactions, archives, extensions, and reflections of ‘experienced’ reality. The separation between the digital and objectness is the space between human touch and perception: the affect of contemporary technology. We train ourselves to process fragments of the digital world, recombining them into an almost infinite number of configurations in order to create the semblance of a whole. The truncated and disembodied limbs, fruits, and food packaging in the sculptures and videos speak to the fragmentation and compartmentalization encouraged in digital space by questioning literal and metaphorical touch, or even the sensation of closeness, between bodies. The increasing distance between humanity and physical reality bleeds into the infiltration of technology into our collective internet-based-smooth-pastel-dream-space, a place that is mined for both image and reference. This work is focused on the ways in which bodies are both gendered and metaphorically fragmented in terms of the linguistic and image-based correspondence between capitalist-driven material desires, physical sustenance, and the digital spaces we inhabit.