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Love it or hate it online dating uses unprecedented new technologies to connect potential romantic partners and theoretically enhance the chances of finding true love (if that is your goal).

 

Kenzie Housego’s exhibition ❤️💔❤️ explores contemporary courtship by investigating past and present modes of behaviour related to dating rituals. Her textile-based practice combines technological components to engage audiences in a dialogue with artworks. Housego also employs historical imagery rooted in floriography, also referred to as the language of flowers, as a symbolic tactic to uncover fundamental changes and dichotomies between expectations and behaviours in courtship. ❤️💔❤️ also investigates the conveyed meanings of emojis, texts, and sexts, while juxtaposing historical and contemporary visual symbology to draw parallels or find differences between methods of signalling attraction through display. The ­artwork highlights how romantic communication is transmitted, interpreted, and misinterpreted via screens. As coded symbols, romantic exchanges in our digital culture are frequently mediated through technology and may or may not always convey the meaning intended.

 

Each of the five artworks in ❤️💔❤️ explore a specific facet of contemporary courtship. These include the role of technology, online representation, communication tactics, romance, and dating texts. ❤️💔❤️ contains digital components such as electronic light emitting diodes (LEDs), motion sensors, and chatbots used to conduct real time online communication. Chatbots are designed to convincingly simulate the way a human would respond in a conversation through a trained artificial intelligence (AI) program. The artworks offer an invitation for interactivity that Housego hopes will encourage viewers to shift from passive observers to active co-producers as they engage with the digital media, experience other points of view, and ultimately, form their own individual meanings.

 

 

 

Learn more at kenziehousego.com   

Follow: @kenziehousego