Я твой слуга, я твой работник (2013)

I am your slave , I am your worker (2013)

Ye Jiamin, Singapore

Description

Drawing the title from the 1978 Kraftwerk Song, “The robots”, this piece serves as a visual metaphor of the current internal and social state of many human beings. With the emergence of new technology and the proliferation which technology has, the majority of us have deeply integrated technology into our daily lives; fundamentally changing the way we interact and communicate with one another.

Our behaviour begins to change as our organic elements begin to “fuse” with the artificial resulting in the reduction of physical contact and live communication. Technology which proclaims to connect us has in-fact become the very boundary which segregates instead; for we are increasingly absorbed into our artificial environment (the inter-web) despite being physically present elsewhere (physical reality).

Drawing visual style references from science fiction films (clinical suit), it serves as a contrast to the warm faceted wooden piece akin to a barrier representing our organic facade; concealing an adopted cyborg persona. Activated by a switch, the user chooses to release or collapse the wooden barrier to reveal a glowing core that beats to the rhythm of a human heartbeat. Hence, begging the question if we are the slaves to technology or instead the other way around.

Medium

Stretchable synthetic fabrics, Acrylic structure for shoulder piece, White fabric, card backing and wood veneer, Arduino Lilypad, LEDS and string lights

Techniques

The garment has been put together through various sewing techniques. The LEDS and string lights linked via conductive thread have been programmed with the lilypad arduino sewn onto the garment. The wood veneer was glued onto a hard card backing and cut to shape with a laser machine. The final veneer pattern was glued onto a white fabric guided with a template to ensure the regular pattern and sewn onto the acrylic shoulder piece.

Image credits

Ye Jiamin