Voltaic Realism

There are 800,000 suicides globally per year, and every second, Twitter is flooded with people telling the world that they want to die. Yet, we do not feel the weight of the words on the screen. They remain little more than flashing lights. With ‘Voltaic Realism’, Keisuke Fujita materialises this endless stream of suffering that would otherwise vanish. His real-time installation converts digital signals into physical substance. Each Tweet uses 0.0054g of carbon as it is transmitted across servers and devices. So for each suicide Tweet registered, 0.0054g is scratched from a large chunk of solid carbon until gradually it is worn down, one sad message at a time.