Pursuing Happiness through the Use of Technology

In her cinematic work, Portuguese artist Anabela Pinto considers the relationship between technologies and consumers in order to understand the effect on our daily routine.

Precious Things reflects on the contours of materialistic desire and its relationship with the pursuit of happiness. It is an observation of the cult of technology as an extension of the human psyche, where consumer objects appear to channel, reflect, and feed on the emotions of its users.

I was thinking of the presence of technologies in the domestic space and how they transform our living environment, create new visual landscapes and specific aesthetics that tinge and shape our everyday rituals.

The blue light emanating from a TV screen permeates the scenes and reiterates this presence, harbouring the delights of artificiality, the promise of a more in-tune experience.

Steeped in nostalgia, home electronics become the main subjects in open-ended narratives that incite the imagination of the viewer, while speaking of an ever-evolving and ambiguous relationship, the human closeness to technological objects of desire, our precious things.

Words and Pictures by Anabela Pinto.

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Anabela Pinto is a Portuguese artist living in London. Her practice reflects an interest in the relationship between people and technologies, consumer culture and desire, and its subsequent effect on the aesthetics of our daily living surroundings. She holds an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art. Find her on PHmuseum and Instagram.

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This feature is part of Story of the Week, a selection of relevant projects from our community handpicked by the PHmuseum curators.