SpY's audio-visual 'monolith' installation questions our infatuation with screens

spy’s ‘monolith’ enlivens llum bcn festival with light and sound 

A monumental installation by urban artist SpY has taken over Barcelona for a hypnotic audio-visual experience. ‘Monolith’ infuses the space at Llum BCN Festival 2023 with a chilling red glow, projecting a dazzling display of light, sound, and motion to trace the present and future of our relationship with ‘the most totemic element of our society’ — digital screens.

The Spanish artist draws into consideration our new reality embedded in technology and its encroaching intrusion into our personal information. Questioning the future of data, Monolith asks: are we already in the time when humans become data? How will we confront the integration of bodies and devices? Is this the last generation of humans who are not digitally transformed?

SpY unveils ‘Monolith’ | all images by Ruben Perez Bescos

urging observers to look up from their screens

SpY’s ‘Monolith’ pays homage to Stanley Kubrick’s classic film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. The tale recalls the encounter of a group of pre-human apes with a large monolith, incomprehensible at first, but eventually impelling them to use tools and marking the start of human evolution. In response, the artist’s installation presents a metaphorical digital counterpart for modern day society’s pervasive infatuation with screens.

‘Screens, the magical mirrors in which we build our personas, and where an ever larger part of our reality takes form, have become integrated into our lives to an extent that, until fairly recently, was still unconceivable. Their potential for disruptive, emancipatory endeavours and for the circulation of genuine ideas is obscured by a deluge of empty content. We remain stunned by the constant updating of the screen. The screen gives us access to everything, yet keeps us in chains,’ notes SpY.

‘Monolith’ takes over Llum BCN Festival 2023

a haunting red glow exudes the space

a hypnotic display of sound and light

the installation questions our relationship with ‘the most totemic element of our society’ — digital screens

a hypnotic display urges viewers to look away from their own screens

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project info:

name: Monolith
designer: SpY
artistic direction: Maria Güell

curatorship: Oriol Pastor

soundtrack: Omar Tenani

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edited by: ravail khan | designboom