Faculty of Art
Sculpture/Installation
Shay Salehi
not OK computer
Installation
2020
Dell Optiplex GX110 desktop computer running Windows 2000, 256MB RAM, CRT monitor, keyboard and mouse
00:02:00 [hh:mm:ss]
"It allows us to imagine, I think, a world where the material around us— the denim of your jeans, the glass of your watch crystal, the wood of your chair set—has, as the object of its desire, perhaps, the desire to be some other object. . . . A secret life of things that is irreducible to the object forms with which we have constructed and constricted our world. And it is the recognition of that life, I think, that holds some premise for transforming life as we know it."- Bill Brown, Objects, Others and Us (The Refabrication of Things)
“not OK Computer is a CRT monitor and desktop computer that recites a poem, only to erase the poem and repeat it again. The computer is tethered to this fate, with no possibility of change. The poem reflects feelings of loneliness in a time of necessary isolation during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. The computer recollects the memory of abandonment, outdated and forgotten it lives suspended within this space. By connecting the sentient to technology there is an attempt to acknowledge how, and if, these emotions can exist beyond the human experience.”