Australian artist Tully Arnot has constructed a simple little mechanized sculpture that spends its solitary days constantly liking every person that comes up in its Tinder feed. Titled Lonely Sculpture, the piece uses a rubber finger attached to a small motor that creates a funny little pun on the digit and the digit-al. It’s all been perfectly timed to Tinder’s refresh rate for potential love.
If you want some really ponderous explanation of the insanely pertinent significance of this piece in our EVER-INCREASINGLY NETWORKED WORLD ArtNet has you covered:
…the sculpture calls into question our increasingly digitized networks of relationships, illustrating how communicating via machine strips our interactions of personality and individuality.
Continually tapping yes for each and every profile, Lonely Sculpture is a reflection of both our desire for human contact, and of the isolating nature of social media networks and online dating. As we become more and more dependent on technology, the lines between man and machine are blurred.
Now that’s an artist’s statement any MFA candidate would be happy to hang on the wall for no one to ever read.
It seems like the title says it all though; it’s a lonely sculpture. It’s about loneliness. In our EVER-INCREASINGLY NETWORKED WORLD, the lines between simplicity and the desire to peg everything to technological advances are blurred. You can check out the poor little finger searching for love in the video embed above. (Photo: Tully Arnot)
