Our Writing Tools Take Part in The Forming of Our Thoughts, 2018
laser cut c-print 
series of 9 images
30 x 20 - 200 - 150 cm

The series Our Writing Tools Take Part in the Forming of Our Thoughts, explores the smartphone’s distinct language of iconic symbols which every user must learn in order to interact with the device and its content. Unlike traditional photography, smartphone images nearly never appear full screen. They are framed by icons −  hearts, speech bubbles, paper planes. These icons not only frame our smartphone photos, they also influence and guide our social interactions. Across different countries and cultures, people now communicate using this vocabulary. While architectural spaces shape our analogue encounters, the layouts and icons of apps shape and limit our social interactions online. 

In Lulay’s series Our Writing Tools Take Part in the Forming of Our Thoughts, photographs taken inside the apartment of her 75 years old friend C. merge with iconic symbols from the digital world.  Lulay catalogues and translates the analogue contents of her friend’s private living space into the digital language of smartphone icons. In an image of the home office, for example, a computer screen is superimposed with the icon of a globe, a cursor and file folders. In a second step a laser cuts this collage of icons out of the photo print. The flat surface of the printed photograph becomes an ornamental network structure which allows a fragmentary view into the private living space of Lulay’s friend. 

The network-like structures and semi-transparent qualities of the works echo how smartphone interactions make us transparent. As soon as we share, manipulate or archive our private photos, smartphone app companies take our location, interests and habits and add it to their data pools. Like the laser cuts themselves, our online interactions also cast shadows. Our casually and unconsciously left footprints are condensed into data portraits that unfold behind us like technical, non-visible labyrinths. Confronting the viewer with an overabundance of information, Lilly Lulay’s complex works invite us to linger longer than the five seconds we generally spend looking at a smartphone image.

detail C: collage from icons (lightbulb, clock, speech bulb, microphone..)