iconsciousness

Iconsciousness is a mirror that reflects the viewer while also displaying an up-to-the-minute live stream of text, images, videos, and animations aggregated from Internet sources, some public, some private to the artist, while others continuously altered by the artist from remote locations. The viewer is also able to add to these streams by texting, emailing, or posting to the media sources. Iconsciosness is based on Magic Mirror technology but extends and complicates the concept and functionality.

Iconsciousness reflects upon the evolution of human consciousness as it has expanded into new sensory devices, while subject to a fire hose of continuous information. A growing number of smart devices and applications have made it possible to monitor or ‘sense’ information being broadcast from a multitude of sources and locations. Each information stream can be thought of as coming from an additional sensory organ, as the constant data flow can require as much attention from our immediate consciousness as an internal sensory organ such as eyes or ears. As algorithmic rabbit holes vie for the biggest piece of our divided attention, our consciousness moves in synchronization to a manipulated rhythm of time and space, syncopating our perception.

A Magic Mirror is an aggregation device that is at once a collection of continuous data streams while also a presentation of a perpetually live narrative moving at a manufactured pace, extending into both consciousness and memory. Fittingly it does so while reflecting the viewer, unshrouding the connection and symbiosis between the two.