What is beneath your phone?

The idea for the App Pal was conceived when I was taking apart an old phone with the intention of constructing something new. At the beginning I wasn’t quite sure what that was going to be.

Using a basic kitchen knife to pry apart the different components and super glue to stick the rearranged pieces together again, a face slowly began to surface and the idea of this perverse droid lurking within the mechanics of the phone began to grow.

I didn’t allow myself to use any parts other than the elements found in the phone, nor did I use any tools other than a knife to help break the circutry and glue to stick them down. It wasn’t long before a fully formed model robot looked back at me.

I repeated this process a few more times with different phones. When I destroyed them with a knife the randomly torn chunks of circuitry were always different and this helped each model to be unique and have a look of it’s own.

The phones were donated from friends and family and all were torn apart and given a renewed upgrade as I created more and more.

Once I had created a few more I began to theorise about the meaning behind this army of home-made droids. Why did they all look so malevolent? What should I do with them?

A far cry from the slick and modern design that they spawned from, the App Pal is a gizmo of grotesque appearance and clumsy presentation. It’s look is a contradiction of rough broken segments and the modern automation of what it once was.

I envisioned App Pals being used as social media tools. An exaggerated contraption that allows people to navigate the world of online engagements and help them to connect to one another, while potentially keeping them isolated and despondent towards real life connectivity.

The App Pal is a model that exemplifies the horror and loneliness of social media.