Prologue: Rose to Technology: A Socio-Fashion Retrospective

So once again I am sorry for leaving you readers for so long. I know it has been months since I posted anything worth reading in this blog. But if you stalk me (for any reason, because I don't think I am stalk-worthy), you will realize that lately I have been very active in another social media: Instagram. My very late contact with the Instagram indeed is the trigger for my latest art project, Rose to Technology.

"ROSE

TO

TECHNOLOGY"

An experimental fashion-technology-literature,

camera-tablet-computer artwork collaboration

with Merlynda Ayu

Related post: Nomophobophobia (February 2013)

Lately at the end of the semester, I got a new tablet smartphone to change my old phone. I wasn't really an addict of technological advances, at first, not as much as I am attracted to books and canvases; I was a more traditional person, basically believed that "raw" art is "purer" than the digital ones, put for example, loving painting better than sketching things on the computer. But having the smartphone had taken me to a next level. It amazed me how it expanded the flow of creativity to my daily life. I got a direct access to any artistic source so overwhelmedly fast and huge; everyday, I just need to log on to Instagram (for example) to connect to a wide range of diverse artists, professionals and amateurs, which provide eye candies and aesthetic vitamins to broad up my art intelligence. Tehnology, which I used to despise as narrowing and simplifying the intricacy of pure art, now connects me to the unlimitedness of artistic world and widening my creative vision instead.

At certain point, it came to me that information technology is the future of humanity. My sociology teacher in high school had stated that human civilization will finally succumb into a stage known as "information civilization". Human civilization, since its beginning, is divided into stages: from traditional society, to industrial society, and now, I believe, is the beginning of a new generation: information society. Internet has become an importance in our activities. We are all depended to internet nowadays. Globalization brings openness not only in cultural nor political but also in our daily lives. Connection to the outside world and being updated with social environment's current issues have become a need.

There are surveys that state that more people is checking up their Facebook notification right after they wake up. Observing reality around, as we are becoming more connected, being cut off from internet connection suddenly cut your connection from the "world". We call those people who have no Facebook or Twitter account as "nerds" or "outdated". Everybody has to have a social media account because the fastness of information flows make the daily pace faster too; so we need a faster source of references, which is the intenet. We no longer go to library, but to Google. We don't read encyclopaedia, but Wikipedia. We don't need radio, we have iTunes. We don't see television; there is YouTube already. Instead of galleries, we enjoy artworks in Instagram, Pinterest, Vscocam... And of course, we rarely hear the word "diary" because we have Blogger instead.

Why did this happen? You can observe the answer in fashion world which is very sensitive to human society at certain point. Lately the fashion embraces the 90s again, an age which used to be criticized for its less intricate fashion style. From Lady Gaga to Katy Perry, if you put a better attention in their creative style today, is becoming less extravagant, more simplistic, and sleek. The current fashion represent the repetition of 90s spirit, the excitement for technology: 90s are the time where anything connected to technology raise people's excitement and enthusiasm. From warm sweater to simple skirts, fashion in 90s is conquered by dynamic shapes and functionalism. It is because the world in 1990 are moving towards technological evolution which stressed on functionalism of technology.

We need technology to help our lives. Currently, the context is in information functionalism: to get information faster and sooner. Realize that pop culture nowadays is embracing this media needy. More celebrities have Twitter account and use it as a way to promote their events and causes. YouTube just launched its first virtual award which is broadcasted to their website instead of television channels. Madonna created a virtual campaign which encourage her fans to promote their artwork via internet. Whether it's Lady Gaga nor Gwyneth Paltrow is creating a social media to gather artworkers worldwide. Social interaction moves from reality to virtuality.

It doesn't mean that it has no danger within. Through its simplifying methods, it created an instant world which less care to the importance of the process. I have always been concerned about the matter (which have been written in "Nomophobophobia") and grown more after I experienced the technology-needy phenomenon itself. Technology and virtuality was meant to help human in solving reality problems, not erasing the humanity and reality itself. What happened now created a new problem through addiction to instant matters. Here, people take a false advantage over technology and endangering natural reality.

This thought is the base for the Rose to Technology project, although I must say that the understanding came after I took the shot and did the digital processes. This was a collaboration with my bestie-dear Merlynda Ayu. The initial goal was to balance masculine-feminine aesthetics, but then it went further. Analytically, from the title, rose represents the nature in its essence: reality, which every human are born from; it also the past form of "rise". Technology, of course, represents the recent artificial phenomenon of human advancement. Therefore the project is about embracing the technology to improve our environment, balancing the reality and virtuality. In the project's context, it is about using the technology's simplicity to intricate more traditional artworks. It was arranged to envision the first stanza of She Wore A Wreath of Roses, a poetry by Thomas Haynes Bayly, a Victorian poet who lived circa 1797-1839. Many of the shots in this project was taken with tablet smartphone which mixed with camera-taken pictures and processed together in notebook computer.  As an irony to the concept of technology, the shoot used handmade flower crowns and flower bracelets from my fashion label BOADICEA. Therefore, it combined the natural and the artificial, masculine and feminine, John Lennon and Yoko Ono... the past and the future, reality and virtuality.

In the end, through this project, I hope to raise awareness of the advantage and danger of technology.  Don't let technological advancement dissolve the intricacy of human social interaction. Afterall, we are all humans of emotional soul and dynamic heart, not robots of binary commands and structured machines.

Nomophobophobia.

So I have been really uninterested in texting lately.

I had realized this for a long time. One day, a friend of mine complained to me, "Why did you never reply my texts?" I was quite stunned when she asked me this, having no idea of what to answer. Mostly because I do not think that to reply is not an obligation; it is my right not to answer. But then, her complain triggered a thinking in my mind. Why did I never reply her texts? It was not merely because my phone was not really in its good shape lately. It has been two years old and since I am not really gadget-friendly, it is an achievement that it haven't been really broken yet. But there is something more.

Contrary to most people, I am totally afraid of being addicted to gadgets. You know this phenomenon called Nomophobia, fear of losing your cellphone. Well, mine is the complete opposite; Nomophobophobia, the fear of fear of losing your cellphone. I created the term one day, when I hanged out with (another) friend of mine and she kept texting, or BBMing, in her cellphone, throughout the time.

That time, I instantly realized that I don't want to be that kind of person, who cannot get off of their cellphone nor gadgets and spend most of their time texting, gaming, chatting, tweeting, or any gadget-connected things. I do not want to always get panicked each time I left my cellphone at home, or urged to checkout my inbox every five minutes; nor feel hurried to reply each text that I receive. I do not want to be addicted to the electronics. 

I was not being naive. I dare to say this because I have gone through that phase: I used to be a cellphone addict. I can not get off of my cellphone even just for a while. I ran everytime my phone rang; to pick up a call; to answer a message. I texted everywhere, at anytime! I spend hours in my room to have chat with my friend; and spend thousands for the phone credits. I only was existed physically as my concentration was on my cellphone. I was an enslaved robot: I gave all my life, all my focus for the sake of the replying texts and updating statuses.

And it was not healthy. My mother used to complain of how I spend more time with my 'virtual' friends instead of the 'real' people around me and she was right. Slowly, I retreated from the physical world to live in the imaginary environment of signals and internet. But this world are not real: it is full of shadows and smokes.

Most things that you see in the virtual world are projections of things that its creator wanted to be seen by people. Even the nature of the virtual world are deceit. Isn't this words I typed are truly binary codes of two digits? But the machine inside has faked the ones and zeroes into a, b, c, d, and so on. Things here may seemed to be beautifully unflawed as it has been distorted to suit audience's expectations and desires. That is why in a recent academic study, scientist found that people who spend more time in the internet feels more unsatisfied with their real lives: because they can only see perfections in their virtual environment. 

Perfection will consume your heart and with it, our gratitude to life. When we see others posts, which mostly about good parts of their lives nor perfect bullshit from commercials, then compare this to our own imperfect reality, we will feel jealous. "My friend just bought a new laptop; while I still here using PC." "She looks so beauty in that dress; why wasn't I born that pretty?" "He achieve so many things and have a perfect life. But mine... it sucks."

We complained about our lives and demand more. This is where the danger lies. Buddha said that, "Desire is the cause for all your sickness and misery." We feel terrible about our lives not because it is terrible indeed; but because we do not feel that it is all enough. Greediness will suck our energy and exhaust us, a horror far mor terrifying than just addicted to texting.

We stop looking to our true environment, the physical world, where we can touch and feel real things. But the truth is, our reality, though full of flaws, are the most impeccable thing as it is real. We discovered our friend have their own problems too; mostly are not so different than ours. We see leaves in their true lemonade green; not in a colour that have been emphasized through Photoshop. People that we meet are as true as how they are when we meet them; not just our imagination of a person we know from the internet.

Behind its defects, reality has its own perfection. Me myself always feels happy for even simple things like the smell of the rain; to see sunrise above the river, on my balcony; to sit under a tree, while the breeze blows my hair; to feel the smoothness of my cheek after I washed my face. Life is beautiful if we know how to feel gratituous of; a thing we cannot experience if we keep our head behind the monitors and eyes set on the phone.

That is why, I fear nomophobia. I do not want to be trapped inside the world of binary codes and pixels. I want to live a real life: a live that is not faked, how imperfect it is. I am not changing myself into a robot, nor communicating with robots. I am a human, interacting with humans. I do not want to read "hahaha" nor "wkwkwk" nor even "LOL"; I want to hear it live, from your heart, spoken by your mouth and heard by both of my ears.

Indeed, I live in today's world. I have realized that not replying message is impolite  and I am intended to change. But I will not let the obligation enslave me to become a robotic machine once again. I had missed many enjoyment of reality; I will not miss anything more. All I can say is I am keeping this nomophobophobia. Because truth is the ultimate pleasure that a man can ask; so I am not buying lies.

Nor living it.