COMPUTER CHAIR

The color lavender made its way into my life by its own choosing. With no invitation or provocation. It has long been one of my mom’s favorite colors. The fluorescent perfume of the perennial herb, crowned with tall spikes of pale violet flowers, is recognizable to most for its therapeutic, soothing quality. Lavender was the chosen palette for mom’s second wedding and, incidentally, the name of the street I grew up on—“Lavender lane”. From the small radius of that particular street, I encountered seamless vistas through the backlit screen of my first home computer. I accessed an undifferentiated series of a-historical, dislocated cultural symbols as they conflated on a single plane, following one another in rapid succession. Tiresome hours were spent on AOL Instant Messenger and Myspace, divulging intimate details of my personal history, seeking connectedness and meaning in the frame of the habitual chat window. It could all be experienced in an instant, the center. My thin, tenuous construct of identity becomes a wisp of shifting color when I think about the fluidity of this world and the way we fold into it. Finding a different social handle I can hold onto. Listening to .mp3s set to feelings. Replaying the YouTube tutorial now and again. 40% SALE: shop the entire store.

Eileen Isagon Skyers (b. 1991, Manila, Philippines) is an artist with a cell phone.