One of the best things about showing your artwork is hearing what ideas it sets in motion for other people. I was so interested in the discussions I had with people who showed up to see The Spa at the End of Time at the Museum of Vancouver and the 360 immersive dome at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre and I thought it was fascinating how many people asked me whether this work is grounded in my personal techno-spiritual beliefs. (If you missed it, you can see the work here).
This work is voiced by a character loosely informed by Hilma AF Klint - someone speaking as a medium, reflecting her experience of “receiving” visions from the astral plane, which are then transformed into a visual system. It’s not meant to “be” Hilma, or to be a serious reflection on the experience of receiving information from the astral plane, but more of an exploration of AI as a 21st Century parallel to previous eras with other precedents about how we commune with ideas that are beyond direct human experience. (And what it might look like if we were to discover that all this time the astral plane that awaits us is composed of a system of oracular hot tubs.)
Why? Because people receive visions/ideas from within historically grounded human-made frameworks, and right now we are grappling with what it means to interact with the alien intelligence of AI, and we are also living in a time with a very vibrant and surprising pool and spa industry that blossomed meaningfully in 1977.
Now that I’ve had more of a chance to think about the experience of showing this work in the 360 immersive dome at the planetarium, I can see more clearly that the planetarium itself creates a visual and contextual angle on the work that just seems kind of RIGHT, given that planetariums themselves (like hot tubs?) are a cultural technology created to give us a lens on the vast mysteries of deep space. I think all of these things are layered into each other: hot tubs as a technological interface and media format that connects us to the “big questions” of life as we gaze into the night sky (while also being kitchy and not possessing some intrinsic spirituality), and AI as an emergent medium that is both a “medium” (of creation) and a “medium” (of communion).
Funny peculiar or funny haha?
Also I think there is a cultural moment now where artists (and other people) are looking for giant spiritual answers again, as they have always done throughout history, especially in the face of huge technological shifts that catalyze a reassessment of where humans fit in the universe. Personally I’m not engaged as much in the idea that any of this is real as much as I’m interested in the fact that this type of questioning, and interest in magic, or divination, or dreams, or astrology, or images of saints and influencers, or wearable charms that create superpowers, or raw milk and beef for healing, or Labubus amulets for luck and fashion, or predictive algorithms, or alien intelligences, is happening again, just as it did in the Dark Ages.
“Isidore of Seville explains “the Wether is named either from its strength because it stronger than other sheep; or because it is male or because it has worms in its head. When excited by an itch they strike one another with great force” [tell me you’re talking about RFK Jr. without talking about RFK Jr.]