Think of this: When they present you with a smartphone they are gifting you with a tiny flowering hell, a wreath of roses, a dungeon of air. They aren\u2019t simply wishing the smartphone on you (and many more, and we hope it will last you, it\u2019s a good brand, last generation, anchor of apps); they aren\u2019t just giving you this minute stonecutter which will bind to your days and walk along with you. They are giving you \u2014 they don\u2019t know it, it\u2019s terrible that they don\u2019t know it \u2014 they are gifting you with a new, fragile, and precarious piece of yourself, something that is yours but not a part of your body, that you have to strap to your body like your belt, like a tiny, furious bit of some\u00acthing hanging onto your wrist. They gift you with the job of having to charge its batteries, an obligation to update it, so that it goes on being a smartphone; they gift you with the obsession to checking, under the table of every restaurant, the messages and notifications, the new apps announced, to syncronise it with the clouds. They give you the gift of fear, some\u00acone will steal it from you, it\u2019ll fall on the street and get broken. They give you the gift of your trademark and the assurance that it\u2019s a trademark better than the others, they gift you with the impulse to compare your smartphone with other smartphones. They aren\u2019t giving you a watch, you are the gift, they\u2019re giving you yourself for the smartphones\u2019s birthday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Preamble to Instructions on how to synchronize a Smartphone Think of this: When they present you with a smartphone they Continue reading
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\nRemarking on \u201cSchenken als Problem\u201d (\u201cThe Gift as a Problem\u201d) exhibition (Berlin, November 2013 \u2013 January 2014, Group Global 3000, art and other sustainabilities).<\/a> Inspired by and edited from the Julio Cortazar\u2019s Text \u201cPreamble to the Instructions on How to Wind a Watch\u201d, originally translated from Spanish by Paul Blackburn.<\/em>
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\nCollage: Charles Chaplin image (Stealing Charlie Chaplin macabre grave<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0blog \u201cSurviving History\u201d) \/ Desktop apps.<\/p>\n