This project explores the overlap between the physical and digital worlds by linking real-world sculptures to Instagram posts and interactions. The sculptures would change in response to likes and comments on related posts. For example, a clock sculpture might tick forward each time a video about time on Instagram receives a like. A proposed initial concept involves a candle sculpture that burns endlessly in response to likes on a related video, while a piñata filled with meaningful items would break open from bat strikes triggered by the same likes. However, changes to Instagram's API in 2018 require adaptation of the programming and electronics to account for delays between online interactions and physical responses.

1. Love Hurts is a project on which I have been working intermittently since 2017 that
dramatizes the phenomenological overlap between the physical and the digital via a
remodeling of Instagram users’ interactions with the mobile application. In the space
created by the project, everyday objects bend to the will of the Internet, operating in
response to the pulse of activity on social media rather than according to their own
conventional logic. WiFi links familiar 3D forms to thematically-related Instagram
posts; every “like” of an object’s/sculpture’s counterpart post induces a change in the
associated sculpture. For instance, a wall clock might tick forward only as thumbs
double-tap a video on questions of temporality as constructed by Instagram. Neither the
posts nor the art objects alone create the significance of the work; insight is born from
their relationship. The meaning generated thus becomes a conduit to an experience of
the world as a gradient in which matter and the immaterial blend. Likes are no longer an
abstracted indication of support or attraction – an end in themselves – but part of a
game that stimulates questions around the tactile consequences of online operations.
They become a reminder of the weight of virtuality.
The project has the potential to manifest in a variety of ways: as an immersive
installation; as pieces that form a series; as 1:1 digital:physical pairings (as emphasized
above in order to explain the essence of the work) or as chain-reactive Rube-Goldberg-
esque machines that further confuse causal relationships and moral conclusions. It
might also make use of trigger points beyond likes, such as impressions (aka post
views), comments, tags, or data from sensors that track the actions of the persons
occupying the space/s in which the final sculptures sit. All of these options are of
interest to me. However, a micro-realization that could serve as proof of concept for
future iterations makes the most sense at the moment:
{A video on an Instagram profile shows a single candle burning in a keepsake box
resembling a Sweethearts candy, emblazoned with the word “FOREVER.” Other items
such as rocks (immutability) and bone (mortality) are scattered around the candle,
composing an altar. Will this love that I’m seeing/feeling be held on Instagram’s servers
always? Or is this a vigil for a devotion already broken? A candle lit for prayer or
remembrance must be extinguished at some point, but on Instagram it defies physics
and burns endlessly, on a loop, preserved, just as the heart you gave my last post
remains intact. For every like the video receives, a bat swings to hit a heart-shaped
piñata containing items accentuating the mix of danger and pleasure central to our
unfolding relationship with the platform — rusty nails, dead bugs, or poisonous
materials encased in hard candy; paper slips printed with angry and adoring comments
alike taken from Instagram — to be retrieved by guests once the piñata breaks open.}
In early 2018, with others’ help, I was able to write a program using Python for Love
Hurts that successfully fetched data from Instagram’s back-end, and to preliminarily
connect this information to a couple of test objects. However, Instagram rejigged its API
in April 2018 as a result of concerns that arose from the 2016 elections. For instance,
queries to Instagram’s servers are now limited to 200 per hour (1 call every 18 seconds),
obliging a delay in response between a user liking a post and the corresponding
sculpture modifying itself. I see this mostly as a pedagogical and textural opportunity, a
chance to incorporate further political information into the work as well as a frustration

2. of the instant gratification smartphones encourage and administer. I therefore have a
need to: develop a satisfying, not-overly-didactic-but-still-educational means of
illuminating the motivations for these novel aspects of Instagram in the project; adapt
the previously operational program (a useful template) to access the new Graph
API/endpoints; configure the electronics and write the Arduino code necessary to the
functioning of the piece described above; shoot the video; and test and build the
component parts of the “concrete” portion of the piece. But there is still (there is always)
room for changes in direction and reconceptualizations.