Ryder Ripps’ recent ‘Art Whore’ saw the multifarious artist and digital designer hire two prostitutes to doodle crude artworks during his residency at the Ace Hotel, New York. The stunt polarised opinion in the art world with much of the criticism claiming that the work lacked a defensible idea.

For his latest work, ‘Alone Together,’ a site specific exhibition for Red Bull Studios New York, the artist couldn’t be accused of such irreverence. As both sculpture and performance, Alone Together acts as a microcosm of the Internet, highlighting how ‘the more connected we are online, the more physically withdrawn we become’ - a pertinent concept.

The installation features a group of six individuals encased in glass and connected to the Internet. All of their digital activity is displayed on one social feed for visitors to examine. Set over two tiers, the six participants (all of whom use the Internet differently, a gamer, a blogger, an online shopper, etc) enact the corporal aspects of a network on the bottom level and on the top level visitors can oversee their interactions or view their their digital activity by peering into a connected shipping container.

The separation is meant to signify the dichotomy between what takes place behind the scenes, and what people actually experience when they browse the web.