Audrey Ristawati
They/them
Dutch, 2000
@jjamkaret
Thesis: Hold the Signal
It hums above
Wood, lithography prints, engraved acrylic mirrors, spotlight, motor turning at 1 rpm.
36x60 cm.
Urban settings have long submitted to the loss of natural darkness, and what follows is a gigantic light blanket that traps the sky in a lit visual stasis. This light pollution has accumulated from the need for safety, extending waking hours, and broad surveillance.
What was once a liberation from nature's constraints is now a tool placed anywhere. There is no choice but for it to follow us into haunting rooms, streets, and windows. Simultaneously, this alters ecosystems, for example, by guiding urban spiders to their light-seduced prey.
I personally have a delayed circadian rhythm, which makes the usual structure of when to be awake jarring for me, especially in an overlit environment. Working night shifts in a seemingly timeless anti-structure (the nightclub) has helped with making sleepless nights productive. This created new habits by day, like a darkened bedroom and delayed melatonin intake.
By controlling light, we gain time, and once we have a hold of the clock, we remove its hands. This kind of over-efficiency is a continuous cycle of structures laid over broken structures, which may blind us to the reasons behind them. It all makes me wonder: as both nature and our own biology adapt to this endless light, can these shifted rhythms become normalized? Will nightlife stay as a resistance to daily structure, and will extended wakefulness develop into a new currency?
Miniature weaves
Sewing threads, painted warp: dimensions variable.
Acrylic plates, metal, light: 50x19x55 cm, 30x19x55 cm.
These talismanic weaves are reflective works based on my thesis.
In Hold the Signal, I explore the parallels between the smartphone and the talisman.
I question how the phone can be interpreted as an imbued object outside its set functions, and what layers of complexity it carries from expired luck to the resource curse.
