Sublimation + Outer Body Experience (1999)
"Outer Body Experience" 1999
It seems that since Nietzsche declared the death of God that we have become free to begin playing God ourselves. Our need for immortality may seem absent in today's modern and rational culture, but rather the opposite is true. We have removed our faith from religion and placed it in the hands of science instead. Most scientists are ultimately working towards preservation of the human species, though their mode of research may vary greatly. Medical advances aim to stretch the human life span as far as it may go, sometime sustaining life from minutes to years longer. Some scientists, such as Hans Moravec, Director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon, seek to do away with the bodies completely. According to Moravec, if it weren't for our bodies, which are prone to aging and disease, we would stand the opportunity of extending our lives significantly. At this moment, scientists are working on attempting to upload the human mind into cyberspace. We are experiencing an increasing drive towards technology as a means of immortality. Technoscience serves to blur previous held notions between fiction and reality.
Deliberate pixelization of the upright figure in the second image and third speak to the medium in which these works were created. By combining the cyanotype process from the 1850's with negatives created through digital film recording from the late 1990's 2000, each image simultaneously spans over 150 years of photographic technology.
Cyanotype prints created through digital negatives.
It seems that since Nietzsche declared the death of God that we have become free to begin playing God ourselves. Our need for immortality may seem absent in today's modern and rational culture, but rather the opposite is true. We have removed our faith from religion and placed it in the hands of science instead. Most scientists are ultimately working towards preservation of the human species, though their mode of research may vary greatly. Medical advances aim to stretch the human life span as far as it may go, sometime sustaining life from minutes to years longer. Some scientists, such as Hans Moravec, Director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon, seek to do away with the bodies completely. According to Moravec, if it weren't for our bodies, which are prone to aging and disease, we would stand the opportunity of extending our lives significantly. At this moment, scientists are working on attempting to upload the human mind into cyberspace. We are experiencing an increasing drive towards technology as a means of immortality. Technoscience serves to blur previous held notions between fiction and reality.
Deliberate pixelization of the upright figure in the second image and third speak to the medium in which these works were created. By combining the cyanotype process from the 1850's with negatives created through digital film recording from the late 1990's 2000, each image simultaneously spans over 150 years of photographic technology.
Cyanotype prints created through digital negatives.
"Sublimation"
If, during the technological era, we began to focus on the human mind as the most important aspect of the human species, then, before that, during the age of industrialism, it was the body. Today computer programs are systematic representations of the human brain. During the earlier part of the twentieth century, we created machines in the likeness of our own anatomy and physiology. Even in lower tech creations, such as the home, we find a reflection of ourselves. We have literally been recreating the world around us from the inside out. Our primitive instincts towards immortality have been manifesting themselves subconsciously in projections of the human species onto the external world. As we recreate ourselves, we are moving ever closer towards artificial intelligence.
VanDyke prints created through digital negatives.
If, during the technological era, we began to focus on the human mind as the most important aspect of the human species, then, before that, during the age of industrialism, it was the body. Today computer programs are systematic representations of the human brain. During the earlier part of the twentieth century, we created machines in the likeness of our own anatomy and physiology. Even in lower tech creations, such as the home, we find a reflection of ourselves. We have literally been recreating the world around us from the inside out. Our primitive instincts towards immortality have been manifesting themselves subconsciously in projections of the human species onto the external world. As we recreate ourselves, we are moving ever closer towards artificial intelligence.
VanDyke prints created through digital negatives.
