Seasonal Affective Disorder light therapy unit (S.A.D.), + 4 double
bulbs, Plastic tray, Raspberry Pi, 7” HD LED screen, various cables, USB
54 x 23 x 35 cm >IG
Shown as part
of Staffage, Lehmann + Silva, Porto (Curated by João Vasco Paiva).
This work looks at our current vision
of technology and its societal utilization in both a medical and mystical application.
Using a Seasonal Affective Disorder light therapy unit, also known as a S.A.D.
light, this work reconfigures the four bulbs into legs that support the
mechanism powering the light also providing a platform to a HD screen playing a
video (00:47 loop).
According to the NHS website; “Seasonal
affective disorder (SAD) is a type of depression that comes and goes in a
seasonal pattern. A number of treatments are available for seasonal affective
disorder (SAD), including cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), antidepressants
and light therapy. Some people with SAD find that light therapy can help
improve their mood considerably. They produce a very bright light. The light
produced by the light box simulates the sunlight that's missing during the
darker winter months. It's thought the light may improve SAD by encouraging
your brain to reduce the production of melatonin (a hormone that makes you
sleepy) and increase the production of serotonin (a hormone that affects your
mood).”
It’s interesting how susceptible we
as human beings are to our environments. I think we often forget this as under capitalism
we work and live to a clock that has little dispensation for the changing seasons
of the year. In the past (pre-Industrial Revolution) the proletariat would often
work dramatically altered schedules throughout the year. This old way of life ran
in parallel to the natural world with work revolving around the harvesting of
crops and daylight hours. Technology has made it possible to bring in our current
abstracted collective comprehension of time. Yet our physical bodies are not running
to this new clock and are actually influenced by natural phenomena in the world
we inhabit.
This unalignment forces us today to
use technology (both in the form of anti-depressants and light therapy units) to trick
our subconscious selves and bodies into functioning within this altered reality.
In this moment in time it has become our job as individuals to change oneself
to fit into society, rather than aspiring to collectively change society to better
fit us. A SAD therapy light is a reminder of this moment in time, a technology that
exemplifies this reality.
Coupled with this is an idea of debunking the myth of ‘techno mysticism’.
I’m a big advocate for DIY and its ability to liberate the mind (and wider society)
from ignorance and imposed codified boundaries around technology. If we want technology
to be a liberating force for good and not just a tool to oppress we need to
open it up… After all, what could be any less mysterious than something
you have created, yourself?
Here is a text we put together on ‘techno mysticism’ for
a great little group show called Slap Dash For No Cash at The Old Newington
Library back in 2018:
Under capitalist economies, commodities are often produced
within an in-built obsolescence; they are manufactured in order to expire. Not
only this, but commodities are further protected from any attempt made by the
consumer to interfere or engage with the process. For example, Apple’s
‘pentalobe’ screws cannot be removed by standard tools, or washing-machines
where the drum-bearing is permanently moulded as to inhibit repairs. In the
words of Ernesto Oroza, “These kinds of objects impose a limit on the user
because they come within an established technological code.” They are codified.
Our current moment is often described as 'technologically
sublime': systems and technologies so beyond the pale of quotidian human
understanding that they acquire a newfound sublimity, a techno mysticism.
Walter Benjamin wrote that capitalism is “a purely cultic religion, perhaps the
most extremely cultic that ever existed.” In many ways he was right. Under
capitalism, subjects are told to ‘have faith’. They are told to devolve their
social and technical challenges to an anonymous clergy of technocrats and
corporations. Yet 1990’s Cuba negated this tendency. It proves that given the freedom
to, the people will find their own codes; their own realities. In fact, people
are always up to their own tricks: engaging with objects through novel,
spontaneous and experimental channels. Art it would seem is particularly
attuned to this sensibility; taking things apart and creating anew.
Manufacturing new worlds.
______________________________
Another thing I was thinking about a lot when I made this work was this fluorescent strip light chandelier made at the Bauhaus school (see image). Also this quote from Tom Eccles when he interviewed Franz West (see image of them both in NYC in 2004):
“Heidegger believed that our understanding of being in the world can
be found when objects that we use every day fail to function – when
something like a teapot doesn’t work. At that moment we get a glimpse of
our being. The Adaptives seem to me a little like the broken teapot.
Rather than a functional object, they become playthings. You become
aware of your body in the world. After all, people do act out with the Adaptives”
This stripping of function allows you, the viewer, to see it
for what it is, and maybe more importantly what it could be. If you take the idea of a kettle and imagine that it loses
its function to heat up water, this loss of function causes you to think - what
could this now be? It could be a myriad of things, right? - a jug, a vase, a
plant pot… a fish tank, a plinth, a paper weight, a very small bin, even an
elaborate hat... Things “become playthings” and in this un-fixed state “you
become aware of your body in the world” and that break can be liberating.
Ultimately if you completely
reduce reality down to the bare bones; we are just sentient sacks of water wondering
around on a crusty spinning rock while basking in the glory of a burning hot
ball of plasma that’s also cruising though the void of space while we are all somehow trying to
make sense of the abstract nature of reality – far out.
But in all
seriousness;
It’s this thinking
outside of defined and recognized societal reality that gives us the ability to
see that, in the words of the late, and in my opinion great, anthropologist David Graeber (see last image); “the ultimate hidden truth of
the world is that it is something we make and could just as easily make
differently” - I think that is beautiful in its simplicity and has the ability
to change how we think. With my work I am interested in the functions we give
to objects and how this affects our thinking, how the over categorization of
our brains inhibits our desire for newness. Graeber’s quote could be more aptly edited in regard to technology
and ‘techno
mysticism’ to read; “the ultimate hidden truth of technology is that it is
something we make and could just as easily make differently.”