Frances Goodman’s new show, PING!, reinterprets the grammar of emojis, their simplification and flattening of human emotion into the neutrality of computer code, into a rich conceptual grammar for a surprising series of new textured and fragile clay-based artworks.

Communication in the digital domain demands instant compression and conformity to the principles of efficiency. To be noticed or responded to within the hour, we use the most minor digital units on our devices—pixels, pulses, zeros, and ones. In the small, pixelated rectangle of a text message box, we reduce our feelings to minimal, thumb-typed shorthand, signing off with a smile- a colon and a closing bracket, setting a friendly tone to ensure it's read with the right intent or, in millennial parlance, 'vibe'. The emoticon—created at the intersection of typewriter logic and computer code serves as a prosthesis for our extended emotional lives in the age of the mobile screen, where the aestheticisation of emotion has been cajoled into digital commodification of care. In the digital economy, emotion is data: measurable, transferable, monetised.

The analogue body has been replaced in digital absentia; the emoji pictogram now offers a simulacra of our human senses and sensibilities. Are you (☺️🙂😊😀😁) now?