Lab Milan’22 edition
Natalia Abramishvili Switzerland Sculpture

Artwork title : AVATAR

Over the past few years, with the development of digital technology, our lives have changed dramatically. The speed and availability of information has developed the habit of constantly absorbing content, making quick decisions, sometimes performing several tasks simultaneously.  The matrix has become a new form of existence, increasing the pace of life.

 

In this fuss, afraid of missing something, we sometimes prefer to look at our screens more often than into each other's eyes. At the same time we put on the second place the daily communication with close people. Life priorities have shifted. We are more and more immersed in virtuality, losing our authentic being and subjectivity.

 

In addition to this, the reality of recent years has affected this even more. For a long time we have been deprived of the ability to move and meet freely.  Much of our communication has become through screens (where we don't have eye-to-eye contact, we look at the camera).  And if face-to-face meetings, the faces of the interlocutors were half-hidden by masks.

 

We have a hard time guessing, and sometimes even second-guessing emotions, facial expressions, how people look behind masks, computer screens, what they are experiencing.

 

In the modern world we become impersonal: sometimes we turn into avatars on screens, behind masks, on the phone.

 

My project deals with the loss of emotional relationships, with full human contact. And as a consequence, the erasure of identity, depersonalization.

 

My character looks up but his face is covered (by a screen). Trying to catch his gaze, we see our own reflection.

 

(Will my avatar accomplish its mission?)