We are beings of desire, Lacan said, and as such, incomplete. Our wish is to be object of desire, be recognized and completed by the Other, he placed another in the unconscious. Sartre also understood the desire as a lack only in the imaginary plane can be solved. Apropos of Flaubert concluded that in literary creation is where you can live a life of pure desire, dwelling among existences whose lack of organs make impossible to satisfy any instinct, for the pleasure kills the desire.
Of bodies without organs also talked Deleuze and Guattari, but not to refer to the incorporeal but the disorganization of the body, the uprooting of a tight identity to open it to flows and intensities, to infinite potential. Reread these authors in the light of sociability mediated by electronic devices leads to finding the distance between the understanding of desire as a liberating element and the reality of their entrenchment according to preset models. Being the social networking friendly territory to free flow of emotions and desires, to the recreation of nomadic identities, in practice become reproduction mechanisms of power devices.
Edurne Herran explores how virtual socialization platforms are shaping us as subjects of desire embroiled in schizoid projections, vacuous mimicry, narcissistic psychosis and exhibitionism that ultimately reveal what are consciences stifled by loneliness. But far from wallowing in existential pessimism adopts a vital attitude similar to that Deleuze himself advised to leave the prison of self: do as the Pink Panther, who painted pink the wall to go unnoticed, to become world, to practice nomadism of identity and don’t be caught up in his feelings, in his actions, in his desires.
She started opening multiple profiles in platforms to flirt, experimented with different personalities to study the biased judgments, the preeminence of the image on and offline. Soon caught her attention the huge amount of misspellings in the presenting texts of Tinder profiles. She rescued those mistaken digital notes, phrases of love or desolation, transferring to the analog world of cross stitch embroidery (kiero hechar un polvo n moncloa, soi un tio timido dibertido...)
– In Love me Tinder love me true you gave an entity of art work to ephemeral missives that flood the network, thereby emphasizing the pathetic beauty of contemporary communication, which has fallen almost to crass telegraphic language. And yet you give another twist to that lyricism emanating from the semiotics of flirt in Poesía…eres tú. We are we increasingly illiterate or is just that the language of love has taken another direction?
I think we are becoming more and more emotional illiterates. We are undermining our ability to relate; we dehumanize us by leaps and bounds through keyboards and screens. Maybe it’s the price to pay for succumbing to progress, but the feeling is that these smart devices are engulfing us. The concept of romantic love is not inherent in human beings, is something imposed at a given moment in history (we should ask the caveman about it, I guess he would frown). I like to use in my works analog and digital because it defines very well the mixture of paradigms in which we are immersed in our society. The changes are so fast that reach by far stress or escape from us.
– The emoticons, in theory, counteract the impoverishment of written language. With the ironic vein that characterizes your work, have used them in several projects: in the recreation of Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, in transcribing paraphilias in embroidery (emoji-sexting)… Can we interpret the latter as a parody of eagerness by categorize all sexual orientation (which the porn takes good advantage) while you point the childishness of conduct?
The language is mutating, no doubt. Every day we added more Anglicisms, slang, etc. and R.A.E. changes the rules at will… The emoticons appeared to give warmth to the texts written in the chat, because the irony is not easy to detect in a written (is the reader-receiver which interprets, projects and often misunderstood) .
Emojisexting [Contemporary Paraphilias] is rather normalization of sexual practices and philias of all kinds of fur. Few things hate as much as the use of tags: mark us from the moment we are born (with binary categories, with pink and blue colors, with pierced ears in hospitals …), by musical tastes, the way to dress … Each person has many nuances, but we strive to standardize and pigeonhole.
This work, of naif aspect, arises when thinking about how we will be in the future. They have been tremendous changes in recent decades, but I’m not quite sure whether will be perpetuated legacy models or are going to be significant behavior changes. I like to imagine my senescence: the clothes I will use, the music I will heard in folk festivals … I’m not sure to rise early to go to church, but … will I rise early to go to afterhour?
-For those who were born analog, digital natives forms of self-representation distort our ingrained sense of shyness, putting it in question: the exchange of home videos and eroticized images of oneself as if they were trading cards, sexting, random chat with strangers … Are freer in their disinhibition teens today? Or, although they have made the domestic space a place of empowerment, often resort to stereotypes (to foreign constructions of desire) when supposedly what they claim is the freedom to be themselves, to experiment with one’s desire publicizing their privacy? I think about your tutorial video How to look like a Sex Doll.
I am very interested in the concept of edited reality and I think, in a way, we all apply: decided to show a photograph that apparently has a lot of freshness, but in reality it is the result of a discard between multiple images and of course has a premeditated frame, not at random.
I can’t answer your question about today’s teens, but I think they have many more tools to be free (even double-edged sword). What I have clear is that, today, being a parent of teenagers seems to me a rather big bummer …
– In Random Souvenirs you infiltrate in a random chat via webcam introducing yourself as inflatable doll, easy hook for the horde of exhibitionists, masturbatory, voyeurs… circulating in Chatandrom. Your work generally shows us relational people of online platforms in front of a distorting mirror or magnifying glass. Because, in fact, doesn’t the virtual world transforms us into caricatures of ourselves letting out the absurdity hidden in all of us?
Once I was told I was much likeable in ‘real life’ (what I call 3D) than in the virtual. I thank the Cosmos for it.
I tend to think a lot about our virtual selves; I like to watch people who have no social skills in everyday life are empowered and free of timidity in conversations, statements and messages of RRSS. Sociology is a field that has always fascinated me; I am fascinated by our behavior in relation to the other.
-Finally, could you anticipate something about the project are you working on now?
I am currently working on a project entitled Futuro Perfecto granted from the Centro Cultural Montehermoso of Vitoria-Gasteiz. It is one of the most complex works (at the same fun) I’ve done so far and consists of a series of actions that I call experiments, for which I need other people to judge me by my appearance. I can not reveal more information for the moment because it would determine the results, so you have to wait until February to see it. I just tell you, among many other things and references, this work is indebted to Cindy Sherman and Sophie Calle.