Cells,the new body of work by Marianna Lourba spotlight for the first time the human element . Notions of isolation and loneliness in the urban landscape are addressed as Lourba creates images: multiple captions of people who come and go, unaware of being photographed on their way and in and out of elevators.
Blurred figures in a distance, just their moving shadows. De-individualised city dwellers in a non-stop motion. Personal narratives and different worlds collide in just a brief moment before the sliding doors of the elevators close again. Αn individual amidst thousands of others? Isolation despite the physical urban environment, despite physical closeness. In our times, where data set the daily beat, the individual succumbs to the binary code claiming unconsciously the one (1) and ignoring the zero (0). Data will define individual’s existence and self knowledge making it part of the emerging hybrid world where algorithms identifies reality. Lourba’s Cells project retains the architectural elements closely associated with her practice. In her work compositional contrasts of vacuum/full, black/white, dark/light come in creative counterpoint with the concepts of public/private, together/alone, unique/common.
