I feel

‘I FEEL…’ investigates the virtual manifestation of our human emotions in the virtual world thru the lens of the emoticons. Emoticon are a metacommunicative pictorial representation of a facial expression, which in the absence of body language and prosody serves to draw the receiver’s attention to the sender’s tenor or temper in an online communication. As social media has become widespread, emoticons play a significant role in human interactions through technology, offering a way to translate the emotions experienced by an individual while in the midst of cyber communication. In the installation, the artist offers a physical personhood to these ideograms, by lending them her voice and animating them. The video and sound randomly start and stop, bringing life and humanity to the virtual cartoon. The ipads are displayed on the wall at eye level, inviting the viewer to a face to face interaction with his/her online emotional alter-ego.

Kosmatopoulos Esmeralda