Commune: (1) to communicate intensely. (2) The smallest community unit in many European countries.
In Commune, a grouping of nine people communicates with the viewer non-verbally while they interact with others via their smartphones. They are at once together yet separate, intense but removed, expressive yet occluded, connected to us and to the unseen people they interact with, yet also separated by the same technologies (video and smartphones) that facilitate this communication. Their arrangement and body language, as their collective gaze focuses downward to the texts they read while also projecting their thoughts into the ether, is reminiscent of a church choir with their hymnals.