Mesas (2021)
digital print

The UN recently declared internet access a human right. That is, access to the sum of all human knowledge should not just be convenient and widespread but fundamentally guaranteed. But with this guarantee comes ramifications. As we are increasingly realising, an abundance of information can cloud the truth, rendering reality more opaque. Our systems of data and its infrastructure grow more complex by the day yet the average person understands little of how they work. We fall victim to automation bias, over-relying on algorithms with the faulty belief that they are infallible or neutrally just. The Age of Information has become anything but.

H.P. Lovecraft said that “the most merciful thing in the world is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.” It’s no mistake that a fiction author lies at the origin of my piece; it itself a work within fiction. As we may soon enter a new dark age of resource scarcity and data abundance, what a blessing might it be to slink back into the shadows of misunderstanding. Where fables, myths, and faiths reigned, free from the overcomplexity of modern life. Mesas is derived from one of these fables, where I appreciate the value in alternate cosmologies, muddying the line between fiction and fact. It takes the form of a schematic tapestry, presenting an array of data depictions, but re-interpreting them as idols and omens. I’ve combined real-world diagrams with imaginary symbolism to construct a spirituality of the future able to mystify our present.