let me be digital
This installation emerges from an ongoing research process developed through diary writing, in which João Maio identifies the digital realm as a place of refuge from a growing sense of disconnection from reality. The digital appears as a compensatory territory mediated by screens, where videos, music, sounds, games, and online research offer an illusion of control and connection.
Despite this perceived sense of control, the work exposes the exhaustion produced by continuous immersion in digital environments. The installation addresses the formation of a repetitive cycle in which fatigue and dissociation lead to digital immersion, which in turn intensifies mental exhaustion and further distances the subject from reality. This loop reveals the ambiguity of the digital space as both a refuge and a source of depletion.
In its final stage, the installation confronts the desire for total surrender to the digital, materialized in the phrase “let me, let me be digital.” This statement functions as an ambivalent gesture — oscillating between confession, resignation, and a search for emancipation — encapsulating the tension between the urge to disappear and the need for connection.