MY SOUL IS A SEARCH ENGINE by Dolly Sen
We as human beings asks questions as part of our makeup, including questions about our very existence, what if we asked Google these questions instead?
We are living in times where identity politics and loss of identity fight for the space where our soul is. Who are we? And who can tell us? We look to our phones and devices for almost everything. Can it tell us anything about who we are?
I have had severe mental health problems in my life, and if I Google ‘should schizophrenics…’ the search engine comes up with such suggestions such as these:
Imagine what that does to your sense of self. How do you think it affects wellbeing? In the binary world of zeros and ones, some of us are offered the more zeros. I occupy the intersections of being a gay disabled working class woman of colour.
Not exactly uplifting results. If I let a search engine take over my soul for me, what does it make of me? If I ask Google: who am I? It says this:
If you ask Google deep questions it comes up with results asking you to pay to find out.
Can I subvert this in any way? Can I make a search engine have an existential crisis, like so many people have today?
Dolly Sen, 2019
This search engine searching for something deeper, asking awkward questions.
