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Joachim Coucke

Empty the mind and feel relief as all the clutter drains from the mind. Isn’t this a beautiful thought? But is it still possible, in a world drowning in endless waves of information?

Please dive into this sea (of cables). But don’t get swallowed by the energy in their thin plastic skins.

We cherish the intelligent gadgets that guide us through everyday life. How pleasant, to be connected to everyone and everything. We are so close, watching others watching, sharing the same void, the same feelings, the same boredom. Checking our devices a zillion times a minute, just to be sure that we don’t miss a thing and stay up-to-date. This connectivity is sought as an achievement in the post-unsmart world. We want to be transparent, to be the glass-made human; we feel free, so we give everything we have — which in the end is raw information. Deliberately we hand in all of us.

It doesn’t even feel strange anymore — habits change and so do we, physically and mentally. All that noise about social consequences and so on only finds deaf eyes and ears that are too busy liking or disliking something meaningless. Because, what is left to do with all that spare time?

The more we see, the less interesting it gets. How dull life can be, you notice with every new augmented face app. Watching people opening and closing their mouths like fish just to get the app going certainly raises a lot of questions. Strangely though, there is a natural harmony to all that change.

Pretending to be made for mankind to help, knowing that we feed certain systems with every click and interaction, we do not care, or rather maybe cannot care, or won´t care. It is just as it has always been a part of us, it feels unnatural not to do so.

The works of Joachim Coucke speak of this natural change, the relationship between us and the digital and physical realm, knowing that demarcation is impossible.

Installations and sculptures of Joachim Coucke investigate the ethical and moral debates that arise from current technofied euphemisms, using an ever-lasting supply of outdated computer hardware. All that is fluid and ethereal, allowing information to flow, has indeed a physical equivalent. When an algorithmized life tries more and more to detach sensation from one´s body, these accumulations of technological waste, seem unreal, but indeed they are and ever-spreading.

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