Face to Face

I seated two figures on stone, turned fully toward each other, close enough that a single lean would let them touch. But each face is gone, replaced by a lit phone, and that screen has become the whole of who they are. So instead of speaking, they text, sending small messages back and forth across a few inches of air. The screen even reflects the other, so each one speaks not to a person but to an image. Byung-Chul Han writes that in a world of constant connection the other quietly disappears, smoothed into something easier and emptier than a real face. That is the ache I wanted here. We can sit knee to knee, share the same light and the same silence, and still spend the whole evening alone, answering a glow that only gives us back ourselves. Part of the series Do You Remember Yourself? by Mehdi Rooz. Also available as a complete three piece set.