Using Tinder can be hard work, both emotionally and physically. Swiping right for everyone is a way to cheat the system that does improve your chances of finding a match, but it also takes a toll on your fingers. Artist Tully Arnot's Lonely Sculpture uses a servo motor, microcontroller, and silicone finger that quickly taps the green check for every profile, but it's more than just a clever way tool for finding love.
Luke Letourneau writes for Runway that Arnot's sculpture "blurs a human behavior that screens and digital technology have already blurred. This is a piece of technology that reflects the way we already interact. Dating apps like Tinder are an aspect of socialization that allows for isolation: it reduces identity and demands judgment. The work heightens an absence or disconnect that already exists with this form of interaction."
It's funny to watch the finger accept every girl sight unseen, but the implications of its actions are actually kind of heartbreaking. We don't know what kind of profile the finger has, but it obviously can't follow up on any of the matches made. This could leave the very real people on the other end disappointed, which further illustrates what the Huffington Post articulates as our "isolation and reduction set in motion by our haphazard technological habits."
[via Huffington Post]
