Genesis <3

You have matched with Genesis21 <3 
An0n93: hi there :) 
Genesis21: hey :) 
An0n93: interested? 
Genesis21: send me an actual message and we take it from there. 
An0n93: :) well, I enjoy meeting new cultures; art, food, trips. I do yoga just to stay calm and fit. I have a little dog that I like to walk twice a day. I am very stylish and elegant. 
Genesis21: I fully didn’t expect that you would message me. 
An0n93: why is that? 
Genesis21: unfortunately, real, honest people like me often get passed over because they don’t stand out. 
An0n93: would you like to meet up in person?

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The phone device becomes one’s navigator in the quest of a romantic partner. With a flick of the thumb, one rejects and chooses a potential romantic partner. In the chat bubbles, we catalog everything we like and everything we despise, simplifying ourselves to be perceived more easily. The users exhaust themselves in the longing for a sign of communication from the other side, consumed by the desire for happiness. With or without the object of desire being identified yet, “the fateful identity of the lover is none other than this: I am the one who waits.”

The work of visual artist and performer Marios Stamatis examines bodies in the contemporary digital reality, with a particular emphasis on platforms and apps for romantic social networking (dating apps, dating sites). He explores the development of new technologies aimed at the private/emotional stock, with an exact re-action to material reality. Users searching for a romantic partner establish their virtual identity on the platform, act, and interact with corresponding simulations of self and other (avatars) before the encounter in the physical world.

The performance processes emotional drives through the transformation of pop culture symbols. Lyrics from pop songs are isolated and form the vocabulary of an online romantic dialogue. New forms of fiction emerge from the fragmented use of the real. These new technologies handle an emotional capital, in terms of algorithms.

In this particular work, the room is transformed into an open chatbox, where the artist narrates daily life in a fantastical environment inspired by artificial intelligence technologies, in the era of “digital matchmaking.” The artist operates in theatrical terms, for the re-staging of the electronic dialogue through the alternating relationships of performer/actor, virtual “potential lover,” and audience.