DayLight Computer
25.01.2023
For AIR InSilo Residency, Başak Tuna develops, rethinks and reproduces a project she called DayLight Computer. It is simply a computer screen that works in front of a window or on a sunny day instead of using the embedded electric light. A desktop screen that is resistant to function at night times. Technically speaking; the computer screen doesn’t need the LEDs inside in order to function. The LEDs are taken out of the screen and another window behind it is opened. The screen’s light source is now the environmental light or daylight.
"Our screens have defined new spaces for new social engagements. Our houses have been transforming themself into a 24/7 lit environment. Home can no longer be considered only as a shelter, but personally, I find it fascinating and scary to consider it as a node in a highly connected network, like the one Ugo La Pietra described in his statement for the New Domestic Landscape; "The domestic cell: a microstructure inside the information and communication systems". Personal devices are part of this node that maintains our daily routines. The omnipresence of electric light provides any scheduled task to be done without interruption from home. Consequently, our daily lives are structured on the reliability of an electric network. We rely on our devices and their ability to connect with digital platforms.
Artificial light has become a substance of which we don't question its existence but its absence because it is one of the main components of our daily life. Especially with everyday devices, like personal phones and computers, we have become the extension of these networks. We not only receive visual inputs, but we also send and receive large amounts of information every day through light. In the domestic context, light is used in many different ways. Evidently, light is not by itself able to govern our daily routines, but it governs them through an electric apparatus.
Artificial light has become a substance of which we don't question its existence but its absence because it is one of the main components of our daily life. Especially with everyday devices, like personal phones and computers, we have become the extension of these networks. We not only receive visual inputs, but we also send and receive large amounts of information every day through light. In the domestic context, light is used in many different ways. Evidently, light is not by itself able to govern our daily routines, but it governs them through an electric apparatus.
Başak Tuna, Folding Screens. Site specific installation, 2021.
Broken computer screens, metal frame.
It turns on and off; it alerts, it flickers, it flashes; it changes colour; it indicates a space; it gives directions; it changes the user's movement; it changes the mood of a space…
Light is separate from its use, yet it eliminates time and space factors in human association in cooperation with our smart personal devices. We are no longer in need of natural time reminders to shape our schedule like daylight; instead, we have access to it twenty-four hours and seven days a week. As a consequence, physical space around the device loses its significance because the device itself highlights the information on a specific surface by one specific light source.
Quite visibly, the pandemic has sharpened the disengagement with the city, public space, mobility and with physicality; we are left living more and more fixed but more connected to our light-emitting object networks that surround us. Even though there is no apparent physical labour, the work itself is the usage of the device, thus including being exposed to the device's blue light. As experienced by everybody, with or without notice, there is always more to do, and there is always the urge to keep doing things. We are busy all the time with our glowing devices. Where does human usership's agency start, and where does it end? "
Light is separate from its use, yet it eliminates time and space factors in human association in cooperation with our smart personal devices. We are no longer in need of natural time reminders to shape our schedule like daylight; instead, we have access to it twenty-four hours and seven days a week. As a consequence, physical space around the device loses its significance because the device itself highlights the information on a specific surface by one specific light source.
Quite visibly, the pandemic has sharpened the disengagement with the city, public space, mobility and with physicality; we are left living more and more fixed but more connected to our light-emitting object networks that surround us. Even though there is no apparent physical labour, the work itself is the usage of the device, thus including being exposed to the device's blue light. As experienced by everybody, with or without notice, there is always more to do, and there is always the urge to keep doing things. We are busy all the time with our glowing devices. Where does human usership's agency start, and where does it end? "
