Tribute to the Pace Maker

Artist’s Name Hyreizl Love Tangonan
Size 1920 x 1080 pixels

Medium Video

Year 2021

What happens when we lose something or someone? Our mind only bears the fragments of memories that have been created with things or with people. However, our conscious mind can only store so much information before new memories are created. In the present, our minds may be occupied with thoughts of work, financial stability, family concerns, present challenges, and future uncertainties. On the constant treadmill of life, stopping every once in a while to take a break before getting back on it again is an experience familiar to us. A recurring thought of what comes next pervades our minds. When things become too overwhelming, we sense that need of escaping somewhere even if it is just for a time.

With our phones at our disposal, we find a ready medium of escape. The internet we access through our phones affords us a myriad of entertainment to choose from. Our phones have now become our bridge to the world, to friends, to family, to workmates, and even to strangers that are ready to share their stories through online platforms. Today, our lives seem to revolve around these inanimate objects from the moment we wake up to the time we rest. Do we still have control over our time and life or have these devices taken this autonomy from us?

Tribute to the Pace Maker is a video art combining sound and images created by a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN), an artificial intelligence coded to generate pictures of human faces. As the images are shown, the artist will be heard narrating her experiences as one would do when giving a eulogy. This New Media Art project invites us to consider how our time is spent and to reflect on the value we attribute to objects that are as transient as our lives.