Joshua Kennington

The Inner Truth

This work is composed of traditional and technology-based materials, set in the corner of a room, alone in a dimmed space. Inspired by my experiences of watching television for hours at a time throughout my childhood, and reflecting on the impact of such behaviour on generations of mankind through the decades, I reconsider the act of watching the screen, by peering into the broadcast itself through the screen, and interrogate the idea of peering into the screen to read into the soul of the television. This interface which bridges the divide between our reality and the reality broadcast to us is critical in establishing a one way line of communication between object and viewer. This work revisits this exchange, giving the viewer agency to view and broadcast into the object. What lies beyond, and what will we learn about ourselves?

“This work explores how larger processes inform our media and the way we consume and return to it. The choice to set this piece alone in the corner of a dimmed room is both a commentary on how technology sort of gets cordoned off, not punished, but pushed aside once the next big thing comes into the fray. The scale of this object represents this idea of the forgotten object, a piece of technology that's no longer at the forefront of our technologically determined lives and markets, and is thereby shrunk and hidden off to the corner of the space. It still functions properly, but due to entrenched behaviours in capitalist markets worldwide, these devices quickly become irrelevant, and those that aren't sold move to other aspects of the global economy.There's a question of authorship, and whose voice and message is being promoted and broadcast through this screen, this interface looking to the outside world. Though we tend to simply consume what we see on our devices and television sets, this work asks us to reconsider the authors of these messages, and the daily assembly of broadcast material screened into the television sets of not only our homes, but of our lives.”