My work for this exhibition focuses on topics surrounding the evolution of language and technology. Analyzing language and its relationship with a changing society that is becoming technologically focused made me realize how quickly things can change. I realized that on social media platforms, we scroll through our timelines, a screenshot of a certain moment or event. After that moment, a barrage of new information comes through the timeline. This digital landscape has created a highly unstable and fluctuating cycle, where the value of language has been reduced. Every word is spoken and forgotten as a passing thought due to the nature of technology.
The constant scrolling that modern society has become accustomed to provides an experience that I wish to show through my work. The convenience of technology has made society take language for granted. We process thousands of words per day and spend an endless amount of time on our screens. Language has lost its value, despite being the very fabric of life that keeps culture and communities running. To show this loss of value, I placed various cases where words are used as “clickbait” and platforms where language is used to deceive. The frames are placed salon-styled, with each frame being a different device, i.e. phone, tablet, computer, etc. Each frame has a different instance where language is being lost in the time technology.
This work is inspired by the idea of memento mori. Memento mori is Latin for “remember you must die”. This idea of death and time relate heavily to language. No matter how dominant a language is, it will eventually die alongside society. This humanlike feature of language leads to the topic of dead or extinct languages. How many languages have been lost over the course of human civilization? What are the possible causes for a language’s disappearance? How is it possible for languages to become extinct in an era that is far more technologically advanced than the past?
The meaning of this work is not to push for an answer to these questions but rather a reflection on what language is. Knowing that the language we speak today could become extinct in the future, makes it something worth understanding. In addition to this reflection, realizing that the power of technology and convenience has regressed the evolution of language through the usage of emoticons makes the expression of words to be all the more valuable and beautiful.
ARTIST BIO
Kevin Sagara explores topics related to time, using technology as a tool to investigate how our current timeline has changed due to the pervasive nature of online social platforms. Sagara’s work takes on a style that relies
heavily on the visual aesthetics of his work. By using striking visuals through film and digital collages, can he invoke the feeling of overstimulation and sensory overload in a highly digitalized era. By doing so, he aims to create a space for
reflection in the very same manner that takes time away from society. In addition to these concepts, language has become a central part to his art philosophy and art making.