— The Worldwide Web of Sorrows | 2012
Koen Theys

THE WORLD WIDE WEB OF SORROWS, a 3-channel video installation, presents hundreds of video fragments sourced from YouTube, each depicting women in moments of solitude, caught in tears before their webcams. These self-recorded displays, almost like unintentional clickbait, are attempts to attract the attention of the vast, often indifferent digital audience. Isolated in the anonymity of their apartments, some women appear quietly distressed, while others are overtaken by despair, seeking solace or validation through the digital gaze.

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These figures reach out, calling for understanding, crying out for help, or pleading for deliverance. At times, their distress escalates into self-harm, laying bare a level of vulnerability typically reserved for private spaces. In the harsh economy of attention, such expressions of grief and longing become currency, commodified and disseminated for reactions, be it likes, comments, or fleeting virtual empathy. Yet, in Theys’s hands, these fragments are stripped of their potential for even minimal solace; he rearranges them, distilling the emotional essence of these outpourings into a continuous stream of raw anguish.

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THE WORLD WIDE WEB OF SORROWS simulates the emotional trajectory of a mental breakdown. What begins as a subdued expression of pain builds into a chaotic crescendo, immersing viewers in a swell of anguish and uncontrolled cries. In its climax, the work reaches a fever pitch of hysteria and despair, eventually subsiding into an exhausted calm. By the end, only a sense of resignation remains, as a somber catharsis restores stillness. Theys’s installation transforms intimate, fragmented cries for connection into a haunting reflection on the fragile boundaries between isolation and exposure in the digital age.