Simultaneous Happening
Annika Phillips
Let’s take a trip back to simpler times, before devices controlled communication. Pre-technology boom, messages were transmitted and received through human engagement, using qualities such as tone, expression, and emotion. Communicating human to human resulted in dynamic interactions and experiences. Now, let’s take a look at communication in the present digital age. Messages are encouraged to transmit and receive through devices, taking away human qualities of interaction and experience. Communicating via devices opens up possibilities of misinterpretation and confusion of messages.
Simultaneous Happening morphs together the age of tech-obsessed communication and pre-tech communication to expose how drastically different a single message’s meaning can change when transmitted in two different ways. This web-based journey utilizes media clips such as advertisements, PSAs, movies, and live events from the pre-tech age ranging from the early 1970s to the 1990s, alongside their digital age interpretation. Individual videos focus on topics of diversity, flirtation, humor, experience, and emotion. All videos are split screen, the original media bit lives on one side of the screen, while the other side offers a digital interpretation through manipulation of interfaces, emojis, and applications found on devices. What would happen if these two methods of communication, (human to human vs. human through device), clash? How can one message be transmitted and received simultaneously through these two methods?