Seed
Ed Fornieles
Carlos Ishikawa
4, 88 Mile End Rd, London E1 4UN
In this small but interesting show, Ed Fornieles tries to highlight the dangers of our future world. Included are disturbing and dystopian methods of technology which simulate human interaction, therefore rendering real-life socialising meaningless. This is a concept which we are finding more and more common as technology advances, from video games to online dating - actual face to face interaction is becoming less necessary. In this exhibition, Fornieles wants to show how things may negatively progress if we don't take this change seriously.
Firstly, there is a video where a young boy speaks of his girlfriend giving birth. It would seem that there are no longer any hospitals, therefore he has to deliver the child himself. He speaks of this future world with disdain and hopelessness, remembering a better world now destroyed - introducing a dystopian element to the exhibition. Admittedly, I didn't watch enough of the film to completely understand the context, but the vague message was quite easy to grasp right away.
Further into the exhibition we see 'Mii Friends' - a piece of technology which collects data from your friendships, from conversations you've had, photos, events etc. and creates you a whole new set of interactive friends: ones which aren't late, don't drink all the wine and have the ability to be turned off with the click of a button. Freaky? Yes. Convenient? Maybe...
Following this we meet the FiniLiar - a virtual animal who can give you all of the information about your company at the touch of a button "if you have the data stream, we can breathe life into it". Forget the spreadsheets - now you can have a cute creature tell you in just a few seconds. The haunting thing about this is that it's pretty much ready to go on the market, and would not surprise me at all if it popped up in a big corporate meeting room. Similar to Siri (iPhone) and Alexa (Amazon speaker), virtual and electronic helpers are already being manufactured and sold in other areas, so who's to say that office blocks won't house FiniLiar's anytime soon?
The stand out work of the show is probably a VR porn programme, where the body of yourself and your lover changes every few seconds. A polygamous experience all in 5 minutes - I managed to shag a large white man, black lady, then performed oral on a black man and a white woman with a penis, and finally finished with a blonde girl and asian man performing oral on me. Quite a lot for one day. The message here is to not sexually discriminate based on race, body size or gender and instead welcome all shapes, sizes and colours: be everyone and fuck everyone.
Fornieles' exhibition, although not particularly aesthetic or exciting, still managed to highlight some interesting, controversial and current ideas. For example, areas of personal intimacy which can be destroyed through advancements in technology and the haunting dangers of replacing humans with virtual reality. The message is clear: keep your friends human and your lovers real.
OVERALL RATING: ***
http://www.carlosishikawa.com/exhibitions/seed/
