Is it a deep irony that there is so little time available to let the mind wander to produce minor revelations that 'shower thoughts' is a term, or that these thoughts, which occur in some of our few remaining moments away from technology, are so frequently transmitted to peers through an online group of the same name? We are constantly bombarded with alerts by... everything... everything is nagware[1] now. Clearly, in our cellular devices this is true: the text message, the update request, the apps which alert you to nothing — merely to say, 'look at me,' and then with every additional push once within any given app ... Phones were perhaps the original nag. A ring to pull your attention from whatever it might be on to the desire of whomesoever wants you attention. Going further, perhaps the clock chime could win the award, certainly in the form of the alarm. The alarm howwever gets a special place as the bit a nag which is predetermined by the user to interfere.
Through the recontextualization of phones as pocket computers, running any number of apps, they have become nagware, but now, through them and their developed paradigms, all else has become so. The software on the (non-pocket) computer now requests for constant updates as do the applications, their subsciption services and their micro-transactions. Advertising has always been so, but the prevalence brings new frustrations to every car horn and every crossing signal. Those things which were a mild nag in the past, are now accentuated to frustration due to their part in the tumultuous see of attention seeking. This nagging of our phones and electronics becoming now so constant, that every little nag that we used to tolerate, becomes just one more in the stinging swarm - to the end that every stranger who requests a moment of our mental space becomes one more alert and interpersonal interaction starts to look like just another nag. Our own bodies become nagware as each minor pain or out-of place hair becomes another nuisance, and we can't and have not yet evolved to be able to process this much constant begging for our time and psychological energy.
Let's send a message. Whichever messenger will gladly inform oyu for days of its need to update and that it will expire soon, forever taking up screen reral estate until it ceases to function. But maybe one auto-updates and never sees these, let's get to the writing text. Auto-complete of a given word is frequently fine enough and not too intrusive, even if occasionally the cause, rather than preventer of typing errors, but so much email has, on the other hand, decided that you really need predictive sentence completion. Assuming one even can disable this, that in itself is another barrier to the intent &emdash; and if not, then no longer can the brain simply type the stream of thought email desired, predictive text will be there to cloud the mind with whatever the next few words it predicts you'll need, and to not use those words requires not only a break in thought, but a layer of thought as seeing the text puts strain on the ability to maintain recollection of the intended structures and verbage. Even now we're receiving another layer to those distractions in requests to reformat text into machine learning generated presumptions of ideal structures.
It's troublesome, then, that the devices which have accelerated this barage are the one's to which we now frequently turn for support. The station we're in, which demands and prevents so much contemplative thought are also used to share the joys and difficulties of life — all while accumulating an artificial abstraction of our private lives. The constant collection of imagery and always on audio recording of digital devices pry into everything we're not already providing free. We are consumed by that which we consume and we know it is thinking about us even when we have the moments to not think on it.
A regretable (at best) state of politics is with us now in this same vein. A moment given to every stupid thing said or done, and every gaff — as if those are relevant to political action. Retelling a lie reinforces the lie[2], even as farce, but the desire to portray the enemy as insurmountably dangerous, and laughably incompetent — distilled to the smallest degree of story has resulted in nagging rather than discourse. Pay attention to the stupid or terrible thing is too often the distraction from the meaningful work or conversations, and at all times drawing valuable psychological resource no less than the ads, update requests, push notifications and all other such blocking functions.
In the shower also exists a period of vulnerability. A trust with one’s environment must exist in order to allow one to feel the safety necessary to leave not only one’s mind to wander but also one’s body. Indeed, the understanding of this trust is so universal in American society the it’s breach has been used in all genres of entertainment to produce anything from shock, to comedy, to horror. It is a place in which many are provided the freedom for explorations of body and sexuality providing cover not only by it’s visual isolation but also through cover provided by the ambient noise of running and splashing water.
Few places provide this combination of both mental freedom of the wandering mind and bodily freedoms are still present in our society. The questions which arise as even this sanctuary is breached are many. If we have no time to think freely and no place in which we can feel ourselves free to think, what happens to our humanity? As governmental and corporate monitoring of our daily lives increases, how does this affect our trust and at what threshold is the invasion too great? At what point do we feel perpetually vulnerable? What can be done to reclaim such venues for thought and body as might be soon lost?
Viewers stand within a mock shower finding themselves looking upon translucent showering naked bodies [digitally distorted to a near unrecognizable state] upon a glass door with water cascading down it’s surface. A tile floor extends below the door while a shower head containing a speaker provides an ambience of running and splashing water. Through this format, the participant exists both within and without the shower. Their environment being that of the showers interior, while the projections place them as exterior voyeur creating a cognitive dissonance to play on the concepts of psychological freedom and personal vulnerability that exist in the simple and personal act of cleansing.
[1] Nagware in Wikipedia