GENERATION Z - ANGWNDT GALLERY-VIENNA(AUT)-2020
We are all suffering by anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, insomnia and loss of attention. For us,
a world without the Internet is just a vague memory of our childhood and more commonly we are
addicted to social networks than to drugs. We are an Internet generation who grew up with a
mobile phone in our hands. For more than half a century, the Internet has radically changed the
way how people think, learn, work and live. Social networks have changed the way we build and
maintain relationships. I personally compare the invention of the Internet to discovery of fire. It
can help us in many ways, but at the same time destroy everything as well. And it is up to ourselves
how we decide to use it.
Thanks to the Internet we have unlimited access to almost all pieces of knowledge of the world. We
are in the process of losing the need to learn because with sufficient amount of mobile data in our
phones, we become a walking encyclopedia. There is so much information flowing and getting to us
every day that we can’t possibly manage to perceive it, let alone evaluate it. This can badly affect
the most intelligent people on earth and the less intelligent ones believe the first information they
read on sites with conspiracy theories.
We cannot take anxiety and depression suffered by my generation as something unimportant, but
social networks are just a tool, and so we are a tool ourselves to use them. If we decide to squeeze
all contact with our loved ones into the bubbles on Messenger, it is only our own choice and social
networks are not to be blamed for their negative consequences they carry. These are only
intermediaries that will enable us to make our free decisions. Nowadays, we can communicate with
friends on the other side of the planet and find a life partner that we probably wouldn’t easily find
on the street. Thanks to Facebook groups and discussion forums, we become a part of communities
and fulfill our age-old need to belong somewhere. And that, I think, is the biggest received value of
our virtual identities.
Thanks to the Internet, social differences have slowly begun to eradicate! Whether we come from a
village or a city - we can build up our own personal identity step by step on the Internet and reach
people with whom we could hardly make contact otherwise. Technology is still just a human
controlled tool. It can only do what we teach it. And such creativity, that is the ability to create and
come up with new solutions, is a trait only natural to human beings. The more information we
provide about ourselves on the internet, the easier life we can have thanks to technology.
If you don't want to be traded by the informations that you provide about yourself , live in isolation,
cook on fire, and hunt wild animals. Nothing prevents you from being a part of and live that kind of
life style, but for centuries we have been playing one big game in which we feel confident and
secure, and today's Internet era is just another level, and trying to escape from it is, to me, a sign of
being a coward. Things need to be faced. We can stop playing whenever we want. There is only
such a thing as a personal burnout in the real world.
Time is getting faster, misinformation is coming from every corner to us, technology is taking our
jobs and social networks are significantly affecting our relationships and self-image. It is no secret
that the human brain cannot manage to perceive all impulses of the real world, and we force it
every day to process the virtual one. We can get crazy from it but the anxiety and depression that
my generation suffers from the initial networks and the Internet cannot be taken lightly. However,
it is still up to us whether we use the technology to our advantage or get carried away by the
negatives that technology openly offers. We can keep drowning in depression, or we can challenge
ourselves. We can blindly receive information, or we can subject it to critical thinking. It is up to
every one of us to decide which way to go. And if one day this whole system of amps, ones and zeros
units collapses and we manage to make it to the last level, we will get back to the beginning again.
In this installation, I point out the perception and manipulation of the social network and try to
define two ways we can choose. We can either be influenced and drawn into the virtual world, or
we can use technology only as a tool for obtaining information that we subject to critical thinking.
We are isolated from the real world by technology, everything seems to take place behind the glass,
and we have no concept of real time. Internet addiction can cause to lose our personal identity,
leading to states of depression and anxiety. By isolating ourselves from the real world and people,
we lose feelings and so we become a machine that controls technology. The only feeling we can
interpret would be attributed to the phenomenon of fake news. The way we interpret our life on
social networks and the Internet is one big performance. It is nothing real, it is still virtual and
realizing two worlds at the same time is beyond our understanding. The whole world since birth is
one big game. Today's world of technology is just another level and we need to get it as something
real and if we make it to thet to the end, our humanity will be a bit further, we will move to the next
level and new possibilities and opportunities will come. I think it is necessary to interact with this
digital world and accept it with an open mind, if we do not, in this world, unfortunately, we will be
lost forever.
I focused on people of the Z generation as they grew up with the biggest technological BOOM. Mere
notes of various facts helped me to get to the psychology of human beings and the effect of that
technology has directly on humans. In my previous work, I discussed anxieties, depressions, and
negative effects of people in the art sphere, and I found a significant connection with this topic.
An interesting and pleasant impuls is the fact that social differences have started to erase social
differences thanks to the infinite possibilities of presenting themselves in the virtual world. I
started to follow the presentation of individuals on social networks and noticed the knowledge.
I began to understand the ideal of today's world and I analyze it in part of my installation. However, I was most interested in the way we interact with technology and how technology affects us.
I think we are just a technological tool to use another technology to develop the next one.
I was interested in the fact that we are becoming a machine that controls technology thanks to the absorption of social networks and the Internet in general. I think we are becoming robots thanks to social networks and the virtual world. We are losing feelings, we do not perceive smells and the only material which our hands knows is a glass
screen. In my installation I tried to depict the process that humanity is going through. There are several ways to go in the installation, but it is important to carefully evaluate each sentence in this game.
The whole installation is supposed to depict this enormous global problem, it consists of a lot of
pieces of knowledge that I began to understand.
I installed it as a remains of the people of the Z generation, I remodeled the showcases and created showcases of the future. It shows the present in the future, which is depicted as the past
It depicts the life of the virtual world.
