The Cessation of Cellphones™:
An Exposure on Our Use of Technology within The Engagement Space of TomorrowLove™ Titled: The Reveal Room™
TomorrowLove™, written by Rosamund Small, was preformed by the University of Waterloo’s Theatre and Performance Program in 2018 and supported dramaturgically through the Engagement Space, titled The Reveal Room™. Here, audience members were invited to experience seven installations, some explicitly interactive, thus helping to enhance, refine, and question the meaning of TomorrowLove™. TomorrowLove™ and The Reveal Room™ dealt with Martin Heidegger’s concept of technē, or technology and its capacity to reveal. This work reflects on the end-product of the dramaturgy team’s contextual creation of The Reveal Room™ demonstrated through audience interaction and feedback, focusing on the installation I created, ‘The Cessation of Cell Phones™’.
Technē and The Act of Revealing
Technology, according to Heidegger, is neither instrumental nor anthropological; it is a mode of revealing through a modus operandi termed ‘Gestell’ (or, enframing) (9). Under the formula of technē, ‘The Cessation of Cell Phones™’ focused on how defunct cell phones reveal aspects of humanity.
Spectators were directed to listen to an mp3 audio file guiding them to select one of seven cell phones, look into the blank screen and be present with their own reflections. Subsequently, they were invited to reveal thoughts, memories, and insights about their chosen phone via an individual note and to attach it to the fishing wire from which their selected phone hung.
image taken by Brooke Barnes
Artist’s Statement
Welcome to The Cessation of Cell Phones™
So long as we represent technology as an instrument,
we remain held fast in the will to master it.
— Martin Heidegger
Hanging before you are seven cell phones. They vary in age, color, size, shape, and weight, but they have two qualities in common:
All are in a state of cessation—a temporary or final ceasing of action.
All screens are reflective.
This installation offers a visceral approach to Martin Heidegger's essay ‘The Question Concerning Technology.’ Technology, as Heidegger describes, is neither instrumental (a means to an end) nor anthropological (a human activity); rather, it is a mode of revealing. Though the original use of this technology, when charged, is to connect with others, this depiction of it through technē—which Heidegger describes as the human capacity to allow things in the world to reveal themselves in their essence—reflects one’s relationship to oneself.
At multiple points in time, members of our technological communities waited in suspense for each of these products to be made available for purchase. In an ever-fleeting, consumerist society, we are in a constant state of technological flux. The turnover of each up-and-coming cell phone spans less time than the cell phone before it. When a particular model ceases to entrance us, then the focus shifts to the next one. Indeed, technology is not made to last; it is a constantly improving medium propagated by human activity.
This is an example of how modern technologies, according to Heidegger, enframe and thus reinforce a technologically driven world. We carry our cell phones around as if they were extensions of our arms—gazed at hundreds of times a day. However, when our devices are turned off, our screens go dark; our gaze turns to our own reflections.
This installation offers a medium for technē to oscillate between the human skill of making space for the discovery of Being and the human-crafted environment. In other words, it guides audience members to draw insight from the unconventionally displayed technology in order to uncover new meaning about themselves. We invite you to explore these layers of physical, conceptual, and social knowledge that are revealed through our cell phones. We encourage you to become a co-author of this work by participating and commenting on your own experience. Through the absence of energy in these cell phones, the energy is placed within you.
Take a moment.
Pick up an MP3 Player.
Insert the headphones.
Listen; be present.
Rest your eyes on a blank screen of your choice.
Reflect.
— Brooke Barnes, Dramaturge