Quality Time | GRWM

We currently spend 3 hours and 43 minutes a day on our mobile devices, spending a total of 2 hours and 27 minutes scrolling through various channels on social networks. Unlike our presence in conventional communications channels, in which we were usually mere consumers of content, on social networks we are often also creators. The figure of the virtual spectator, which has become especially important in recent years due to the accelerated expansion of the Internet, is what Alvin Toffler defined as a prosumer in the seventies.

Prosumers consume and produce simultaneously, while social networks store hours and hours of content. These pictures, videos or audio recordings commodify our life experiences on the virtual world under the watchful gaze of brands or multinational companies, turning them into easily-devoured popular culture. This vicious circle both feeds us and leads us to spend part of our daily time on our virtual presence. This digitalization of experiences, actions and identity, indeed, leads us to experience regulated, public and shared rhythms that turn private time into an increasingly residual condition.

quality time | GRWM is the first part of an audiovisual piece which researches this phenomenon based on audio recordings and footage from the internet, recreating the time we spend investing in our online egos. In this first 15-minute part, developed through fragments of the channels of itztknation (@itztknation), Marla Catherine (@marlacatherine), Chelsie Jayy (@chelsiejayy), Mai Pham (@maiphammy) and Daphne de Baat (@daphnedebaat), Clàudia del Barrio invites us to consume a Get Ready With Me (GRWM), a ritual in which influences share the first moments of the day with their followers. These videos, which are streamed live, have become virtual spaces in which intimate moments are also shared. With this format, the artist reflects upon the impact of digital life on the banalisation of sensitive content, mental health, the speed of consumption, the loss of private time or the feeling of de-realization.