Plug and Play Capable…

This project stems from the end of one relationship and the beginning of another. Renegotiating the online dating industry, I was shocked, confronted, and instantaneously addicted to the digital meat-market. I loathed, yet relished, the growth of my relationship with the same-sex male online dating world and its commodification of bodies: my pound of flesh packaged up and shelved in the delicatessen isle among the rest, to be bought, sold – or both. But at what cost to me? And at what cost to them?

In this project, several questions were posed as my horizons. Inside these boundaries, I have negotiated the spaces of the online hook-up/dating industry and the interactions within these applications (specifically Grindr) by turning the experiences into a series of metaphorical games. The interactions that I am willing to share include those that have the potential to form new and affirming relationships with a variety of outcomes – be it a casual encounter, a longer stint at communication, or a wholesome attempt at longevity. I am not willing to sacrifice my self-worth in the meantime, and I encourage my counterparts likewise. I make sense of my commodification within the meat-market as that of being a choice. It is a choice I choose to make, I admit, as an individual of first-world privilege and the resultant freedom.

This is PLUG AND PLAY CAPABLE: GRINDING THROUGH THE GAY LOVE/LUST GAMES OF THE DATA GENERATION.

Read the full exegesis here.
©2018, Jay Song (JE). All rights reserved

Content Warning
This project contains sexual concepts, language and contextual profanities. Some viewers/readers may find the exegesis and/or the thesis it discusses offensive.

Movement 1: The Meetmarket
Artist book, meat packaging, MDF, acrylic, lighting system, caster wheels, poster, labels, house paint
Dimensions variable

Movement 2: Tag, You’re It
2018, Imperial Porcelain, MDF, remote control vehicles, paper, card, timber, acrylic, lighting system, house paint
Dimensions variable

Movement 3: The Telephone Game
2018, Lumina Porcelain, construction ply, bedroom door, telephone copper, lighting system, cushions, house paint
Dimensions variable

Movement 4: Hot Potato Hot Potato
2018, Dual-channel video, MDF, house paint
55 x 90 x 166 cm; 2 minutes 27 seconds

Photography by Gerrard Dixon
(with thanks to Lee Booth, pictured viewing Movement 4: Hot Potato Hot Potato)