The iGEAR series is an ongoing multi media project, in which I explore isolation as a social event. I am using elements of fashion, graphic design and sports in this work to create a pseudo-consumer product called iGEAR - Personal Isolation Equipment. The isolation pod can be seen as a personal architecture unit, combining a contemporary need for personal expression through consumer objects with classic Modernist concepts of social isolation created by this same consumer culture. By masquerading as a consumer product, the project is able to articulate and commodify the isolating nature of the culture it mimics.

Even as iGEAR markets itself as an escape pod of personal refuge, it gives a wink to the viewer that this is not entirely the case. Throughout the work, the “hero” constantly glances about: to make sure he is alone? Or to make sure we are watching him be alone? Because the iGEAR ritual is inherently observational, it cannot be isolating or singularly personal. An audience is crucial, moving the whole exchange deeper into a social space of consumption, fashion and exhibition; not extracting the hero from it. iGEAR is more than a glitzy accessory for personal isolation, the hero’s purchase allows him the opportunity to express his angst by striking the perfect pose.

The promise of some kind of transformation or redemption is never articulated, only implied. The hero is never seen emerging from his isolation—only entering into it. Thus, the iGEAR unit becomes a techno-fashion cocoon making all sorts of vague undeliverable promises, wrapping itself in a veneer of cool, and distracting the audience/consumer from the fact that there can be no real satisfaction derived from the experience itself. The only real satisfaction occurs in the social exchange between the hero and his audience; in the tension between a simultaneous feigned rejection of, and an unspoken plea for acceptance. iGEAR creates a slick surface that presents a mirrored reflection of modernist angst—packaging it without the need for personal reflection by the hero, while providing the viewer with a foil for his or her own wishes and longings.