Ubuhlobo Lizaba

Ubuhlobo lizaba! – Relation illusion, explores the idea of dual existent relationships. Living in the 21st century has required, dualism blurring the idea of physical being yet making our relationships legitimate.

Due to the challenges in this intertwined globalised world we find ourselves in these virtual relationships, a need today as we find our existential boundaries shifted time after time. To relate, we are helplessly left with no other option but partly exist in that virtual space.

Times and conditions of our surroundings turn to challenge and shift our evolutional relations. A new meaning of being requires those adjustments to suit our well being. On the other hand this relation rather gives us the connection illusion making it sometimes hard to relate on the real being. Pretense and dishonesty takes shape as that physical and emotional relation evades us we create ideals of a relationship where we hide behind the visual representation of avatars rather than real relationships, where we get to deal with each other as individuals. Ubuhlobo lizaba looks at the visual condition of a split existence, a layer of self realisation within a relation where true affection has been replaced by emojis and hashtags. It’s as if it’s no longer together we stand but virtually we stand too.

It’s this new phenomenon where relations are made or resolved in that virtual space where forms of trust and belief are left to be resolved by algorithms. A liberalised form of relation is born where self realisation becomes more important than a union.

This split existence surely has created the distant together relationships. It has shaped and sharpened the idea of together alone. We can now exist at a level of connection without having a physical connection. Our well being is defined by messages and untouchables completing the notion of illusion ubuhlobo which is our relation, lizaba which has become an illusion.