HEART-DONOR by BELOFF & BERGER with MITRUNEN (2007), is a wearable art work addressing our life in a hybrid space. It is addressing issues about physical and global/technological presence, social networks and collected mementos in our everyday life. The vest is created to be borrowed by the audience for an individual long term use. -You can "wear" the hearts of your close network of selected persons on you, and observe the presence of these people in physical and virtual space. |
The concept for Heart-Donor was developed as an idea about one’s social network within "hybrid space"*. The hybrid space is a space, which we –humans- inhabit in increasing measures via various devices like mobile phones and pdas used in our everyday lives. The work takes its point of departure by rejecting the (common) concept about differentiation of virtual (digital) and physical ("real") layers of the world. This work is specifically constructed for the hybrid space. The work attempts to make this fairly new concept of space we live in, visible and materially concrete, in contrast to common unnoticeability influenced by the ordinariness of mass-produced devices.
The form and design for the HDvest is inspired by a traditional life-vest. This technological version of a life-vest is referring to a fragility of life through the heartbeats. The heartbeat is used as a sign of physical, organic life/presence, which is combined with another sign for a global presence within a technological sphere of the world. By creating the HDvest aesthetically noticeable, the work draws public attention and addresses questions about our relation to technology and to our future. *"A hybrid space, thus, is a conceptual space created by the merging of borders between physical and digital spaces, because of the use of mobile technologies as social devices. Nevertheless, a hybrid space is not constructed by technology. It is built by the connection of mobility and communication and materialized by social networks developed simultaneously in physical and digital spaces."
DE SOUZA E SILVA, A. (2006) From Cyber to Hybrid: Mobile Technologies as Interfaces of Hybrid Spaces. Space and Culture, Sage Publications. |
In practice; The recording of a heartbeat can be done anywhere. The vest is equipped with a simple recording interface in a form of a glove. The HDvest is online everywhere and all the time, it uses the mobile phone network for the connection between the server and the vest to follow the online/Skype status of the persons. Recording: Record your heartbeat by wearing the offered glove and pressing both hands together. You will see your own heart making all the lamps blinking in the vest, afterwards your heartbeat is stored into one of the lamps. |