uConnect

"uConnect" is an attempt to deal with the materiality of digital commodities, commerce, and culture through a juxtaposition of simulation and the representation of materiality.

Artist Statement
"uConnect" is an attempt to deal with the materiality of digital commodities, commerce, and culture. Mocking both museum and retail showroom aesthetics a computer display sits atop a pedastel exhibiting a stock tropical island screensaver. Interrupting this banal yet inviting simulation is a soundtrack made up of recordings of workers in the microprocessor industry testifying to the hazardous working conditions in so called "cleanroom" environments. As the testimonies unfold it becomes clear that "cleanroom" facilities are constructed to protect technological components from the contamination of humans, yet provide little to no protection to humans from the toxic effects of the dangerous chemicals used in the manufacturing process. The value of the human life and the decline of all of earths life systems (due in large part to "technological advances" of the 20th and 21st centuries) is continually eclipsed by the next wave of consumer gadgetry that offer endless ways to negate and disguise the real in favor of the virtual. The piece has a similar appearance and conceptual framework as many ready-mades or object appropriations yet seeks to make explicit the political economy of the object in ways often left out of common-object-as-art scenarios. Project by Mark Cooley and Ryan Griffis.

(Source: 2008 ELO Media Arts show)