An overview of my most noteworthy projects
The Communal
The Communal (prototype) is a portable exhibition based on ShadowBook by Miriam Rasch. It functions as a hybrid publication. People can upload stories on the website, this is then spoken and played in The Communal.
In the book, Rasch investigates through 5 experimental essays what happens to our everyday language in the digital sphere. She asks herself how ‘the post-digital condition’ changes the world in which we think about ourselves and talk to one another. Rasch does not define the post-digital as an era where the digital is behind us. Instead, she defines this contemporary era as one where the digital has become so self-evident that it is hardly distinct from the ‘non-digital’ (p.53). She argues that this process of ‘digitization’ has an impact on people and that people are longing for something real in a world that is becoming more and more unreal (p.60). Rasch says that this realness can be found in ‘the communal’ which consists of heterogeneous non-quantifiable domains like art, language and history (p.61).
She says that shared cultural expressions are the interface between the individual and the collective which in turn generate the communal. Jokes, the language of self-help books, popular programs, social media, and also history and poetry all present an opening towards the communal. They are an expression of the desire to find a connection with others (p.68).
This exhibition is also an opening towards the communal. In a world that is characterized by the constant availability of everything and everyone (p.16), it is good to step out of it once in a while and take a breath. That is exactly what this exhibition offers. People can upload stories, poems, essays, song lyrics, or other forms of written text. Texts that help them, insprire them and calm them. This gets turned into audio and gets played in The Communcal. The exhibition moves around busy places. By entering the exhibition people step into a new world. In this new world, someone can listen to your story and leave their troubles behind for a minute.
A prototype of the website can be found here
A prototype of the portable exhibition are in the photo’s below: