Suzanne Tarasieve Gallery, Passage de l’Atlas, 5, Villa Marcel Lods, Paris
October 2nd—November 30th, 2013
There has always been an old stereotypical opposition between material and spiritual substances, but the realities of life today show us there is a third dimension. It is neither material nor spiritual, and yet it promises the individual – or rather, his or her “profile” – eternal life by adopting the functions of religion.
Each person has its own ID. It could be a passport ID or an Internet account ID. Each ID has its own number, which is kept in eternity and doesn’t repeat. Using this ID allows you to make all the actions you need today, also religion functions. For example you can confess your soul to the world by Twitter, easier than to the priest. It’s the most open minded way to say what you want.
There are also important totem signs of this virtual world such as the Wi-Fi sign. It has a function of “saint spirit” that provides entrance to the paradise virtual structure, you can’t touch it, but it does really exist. It is the modern miracle of the social network, in which we can see features of a brand new social system, with its own laws, customs and rituals.
For this exhibition, as in our previous project Cultural Layer, we are interested in the question of what from our time will survive in history. Our era differs from others in that it lives not only in real, but also in virtual space. And it is not just a matter of memory, but indeed of eternal life. None of the data entered in Facebook is deleted, and sometimes the pages of users who vanished long ago continue to send messages. Sometimes this profile also gets spam; it continues to have “friends”, exchange “likes”, etc.
This virtual identity which doubles our real identity, this virtual world mirror of ours so acquires a disturbing autonomy.
