Angootha Chaap
Angootha Chaap is my first “Facebook Exhibition”
(there are descriptions to every picture)Inspired by my visit to SF MOMA, this is a “deep dive” into the blue thumb that has become an integral part of my life.
The medium is powerpoint and I have done it classic millenial style with a deadline of till my laptop battery runs out
Embedded in it is a slice of my life, responses to some fundamental questions and more than anything else, the raising of man others
(spelling mistakes are also in the race to wrap up pre battery!)
Are we evolving or have we gone to the dark ages? Have we reduced the nuances of expression to a single blue thumb in our race to come together?
My critique of the Blue Thumb comes with the irony that the approval of the critique will also be expressed with the blue thumb.
That is life at the moment for us, our generation, the 1.8 billion people on Facebook.
Through different pieces, I intend to reflect back on different aspects of my life and raise questions that I hold.
The content of my life is not mine alone — as some of these pieces bring out. Being angootha chaap, I have blurted these details.
Putting a deadline of the laptop battery, wrapping up something in a few hours and claiming it to be “art” and then gleefully hoping to see the blue thumbs being pressed — that precisely captures the instant-gratification that has been wired in our brains.
What is this doing to us? Would it be better if you’d also go to a musuem and see some ‘real’ art? Or is this the art of our times?
The thumb I click and the thumb that goes into the chat box are two different thumbs…..this gap is not only the a real gap of two thumbs but a gap thats created when we communicate online.
The green sign in between those is a software offering to correct grammar — these intermediaries also unknowingly become a part of the conversation and the message takes a life of its own
Every like is an act of love — and the ways of loving can be as diverse as shown in cinema to as simple and sterile as clicking like.
Yet, even in that clicking like there are many different buttons — and hence many different shades of “like” (which are essentially shades of love)
If you “like” this, I will take it as a sign of love too, without being too filmy about it!
I love coffee and here, I represent “I” with Blue Ribbon, my life. The other blue Is Blue Bottle Company, a roastery in SFO which creates amazing coffee.
This one brings two of the things I love into one colour — and in between those is the third thing that I may have grown to love!
Overall it is meant to say I like Coffee
I must confess to actively tracking how each post does — there is almost a score in my mind which invariably affects how I think about a post.
Is something that I said more true if it earns more blue thumbs? Or is it a false measure?
I took the last 20 questions I asked or encountered from my chat messages — the thumb could be a response to most of them, but the act of pulling them out started creating some interesting patterns….
In these questions, I can identify my language from others, I can identify questions where I am “up” vs where I am “down” and questions from love of the world to love of a person.
Yet, with each, a blue thumb can be a response today
The thumbs up sign says a lot — here, it is a sign of approval.
By having no “Thums Down”, all facebook does is allow us to affirm each other
This is a transcript from a very real conversation with a very dear friend of mine. Even between two friends, these thumbs speak when there are silences, sharing the intent to communicate.
This is a transcript from a very real conversation with a very dear friend of mine. Even between two friends, these thumbs speak when there are silences, sharing the intent to communicate.
There are 1.3 trillion likes on facebook till date — which gives us about 160 likes per human being (161.4 to be precise).
Here those 161 likes per person are juxtaposed with photos of refugees — people who themselves would never use the blue thumb given how tough their lives are.
And yet, we, seeing these pictures feel a certain sense of beauty, and the blue thumb is the only action that we are left capable of doing as a response to them
One screen shot looks at how the so called rivals of the tech world play seamlessly — and as a result the market cap of FB (which will get further boosted as I load this and you spend time).
I have remembered not to exclude myself — because for all the critique of tech that I’ve done, here I am also a partner in that crime!
This is the classic last slide — but is my thank you contingent on the blue thumb being pressed? We may be in a time where, in fact, gratitude also has started becoming conditional!