Whilst technology is supposed to make us more connected, nowadays it seems to have become increasingly common to discuss whether it makes us more alone instead. Because we can constantly stay in touch, exchange photos with our friends on Whatssup, Facebook and Twitter, what is distant has become – obviously, as long as it remains as such– more important than what is concrete, present in the here and now. Thus, it somehow makes us forget how to cherish actual experiences. Or rather, it distracts us from living them: real people, real food, real sensations, reality as a whole has been replaced by virtual connections.
This “dark” side of technology, its way of distorting our encounters with others, with ourselves, and with reality, is perfectly depicted in Julien Mauve’s series of photographs, Lonely Window. By capturing different women and men who are lit up by a laptop screen, the French photographer hits on our modern obsession with technology, as well as on our attempt to dismiss this issue. Lonely Window is indeed a short, incisive portraits series: all subjects are with lowered eyes and concentrated, but at the same time absent expressions, they all evoke, almost murmuring at onlookers (or, again, at their laptops?), a strong feeling of loneliness and bewilderment. “Digital interfaces have totally changed how we perceive and interact with the outside world” Julien Mauve declares “Through its digital twilight glow, the screen becomes a window, opening to a new world while simultaneously introducing a new kind of loneliness”.
Truly, the era of technology has brutally opened a world that destabilizes the gap between looking and touching, feeling and seeing, texting and socialising. And this eerie feeling of being together while not being together, this loss of true communication is what Lonely Window captures very well. Each photo focuses on both; connectivity and detachment, illustrating how we share not only Facebook statuses, tags, likes, and tweets, but also, and more worryingly, a new sense of solitude.
Each photo shows us how we are “connected, but alone”. And makes us wonder.
http://www.julienmauve.com/LonelyWindow