If there’s one thing worthy of sustained consideration from studying historicism, it’s that our capabilities have a tendency to outpace our heads and hearts. Our technologies race in front, leaving us lagging behind. We have various technological systems at play which we cannot stand outside of, yet we cannot think or be without either. We would do well to embrace the truth of our 21st century predicament: as a species and individuals, we can neither survive nor thrive, without gross reliance on the various technologies that support the machinery of contemporary existence.
I’m not a tech utopian, nor do I feel that humans are the architects of our own own demise, that AI disaster looms. Rather, I’m a determinist. Our individual and collective lives – the social, political, artistic, environmental, cultural, and everything in between – are given form and function by modern technologies. We’ve rushed from mainframes to microchips, through the glory of the 90’s and the auspicious beginnings of the WWW to an accelerating ubiquity (and opacity.) All the while chanting “go go go” like some flammable cheerleader. Pushing harder, faster, longer, always on, everywhere, every one, for now, for ever. If it had a pulse, you could feel it, as this is the foundation of our 21st century digital lives – we’re connected to a system, feeding the machinery of contemporary existence every time we go along with it, every time we log on. That’s not hyperbole – each click, each stroke, each gesture, each step, each action, further entrenches us in this machine.
My aim in this work is not to demonize or glorify our relationship, but rather to use the structure of the internet – code – to call attention to the opacity and pervasiveness of these systems while also causing pause to invoke intentionality and purpose. Remind us that being in the middle of a second renaissance means vast disruptive engines – the very internet, immediate and pervasive connection, virtual worlds, artificial minds, et cetera – are at play and we have the opportunity to push back the horizons of the possible. Not only collective, but more importantly, in how we, as individuals live.
The colors fields and gradients presented here are from the range of Google’s G-suite (Gmail, Calendar, Keep, Slides, Drive, et cetera.) I’ve used creative creating to subvert the aesthetics and function of these services. Turning the productivity into bright, if opaque, contemplative spaces. Instead of more, harder, faster – work work work – it’s a spin on the meditative breath. It’s also a pulsing reminder that anything is possible. And, with the execution of this process via code in the javascript console in mind, that this something else, the possibility exists, always, just a few clicks away.
The work is best viewed live, as a multi-channel projection. In lieu of such, it exists here, now, as randomly sequenced stills.