Mediating Earth and Sky’s Divorce: New Edition Derangements
ESSAY FOR GROUP SHOW 'The Annunaki'. PRIZES INSIDE: ALIEN RENT SEEKERS, PRE-HISTORIC "CONTROLLING THE NARRATIVE" TRANSHUMANIST REVERIES. In the beginning was the Word. Then came the Image.
Leaving Chauvet Cave, earliest artwork known to man inside.
Picasso said: “They have invented everything!”
Picasso said: “We have invented nothing new.”
Picasso said: “We have learned nothing in twelve thousand years.”
One of those, he said. All have been attributed, recalled, reported. A story told is a story rewritten. They’ve invented everything! Society mistrusts pure meaning, Roland Barthes wrote. We don’t have the stomach for it, much prefer Meaning Lite. Measured separation contents controlled. Oh. There goes the horizon line; Imagined, Real and Artificial’s mediator. It’s been a sight, earth and sky’s divorce. All the OGs, in fact: interior exterior, on off, fact fiction, unwedded. Two miles from the real deal, a replica Chauvet Cave ‘Grotte Chauvet 2’ has been constructed. Temperature matched, meticulous, fraudulent resin rocks, melted metal rods simulate Cave 1’s curves. We have invented nothing new.
Jason Brown, Ted Lawson and Matthew Palladino have gone to a lot of trouble, putting the world on the wall: man, mirror, mammal, machine. Gold! Artists moonlighting as interpreters, cataloguing new edition derangements in the proverbial garage. Sorting bric-a-brac, succeeded cosmic disarray: ancient mythology, artefact reliefs, hieroglyphics. Contemporary clutter: conspiracy theories; transhumanist reveries; earthly encounters of digitally-brokered culture; “The Conspiracy Theories”; proclamations of AI like Peter, Paul, Moses and his bush.
A brief word from Google AI:
“The Anunnaki are a group of deities from ancient Mesopotamian mythology. In Sumerian texts, they are depicted as powerful beings who descended from the sky and played a role in shaping human civilization. While some interpretations suggest they were extraterrestrials who needed gold, this idea is not supported by traditional Sumerian texts.”
Myth inside myth inside myth nest inside another myth. The Anunnaki are a babushka doll of societal schisms. Packing creationism, interspecies domination, hy hierarchies. And, let’s not forget, forced gold mining labor. Celestial rent seekers, one may say. These pragmatic deities installed a “worship gene” in humans, Billy Carson, anthropologist and ‘4BiddenKnowledge Inc.’ founder explained, having The Joe Rogan Experience. Switched off, “You don’t want to worship anything outside of yourself.” In the beginning was the Word. Then came the Image.
“‘What does existence mean?’ The new answer to existence is that existence itself is the highest virtue.” – Bryan Johnson
Relief (‘to lift back’) constructs layers previously unseen, details non-existent. The look false impression of depth. An idea of what’s below, under, inside, composed of negative space. No paranoid belief out-terrifies discovering, there is no mystery after all. Human intuition furloughed by stainless ones and zeros. Conspiracy theories are the closest to modern theology we’ve come. A society that believes in nothing will believe anything.
“Once you control the dopamine, you control reality.” – Jon Rafman
That mirror won’t stop looking at me. A plug-in stainless steel Eternal Sun Deity super-mirror: perfect for the flower pressed self, flattened, pretty. Mirror, mirror, who loves the sun? In doper’s parlance, Ted Lawson’s ‘Be Yourself’ asks: Have we got too high on our own supply? Camera in third eye place: small, black, round, like a hole in the head. Recessed in the sun, algorithmically trained robotic eyes, link with a chosen viewer at “random” maintaining eye-to-eye as you move through the space.
The artwork truly following you around the room.
While the ubiquitous sun of Palladino’s‘Circuit Board (Ancient Relief)’ maintains harmonious center, a symbol and a star, Lawson’s consumes completely. You don’t want to worship anything outside of yourself. Is this what it’s all about, Anunnaki? Selfhood conceded sport. Capturing endless pictures imprisoned at a party of one. The sound of one hand clapping? ‘Be Yourself’ raises you the knowledge of two eyes watching. The sun rises, shines for all, but the question is: must we be seen in order to live; live in order to be seen?
“I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being. Sent from my iPad.” – Steve Jobs
Advanced technology was used in the making of each work; machine-age dress code respected: shiny, refined, no hands. That neutered lustiness we have collective Stockholm Syndrome for. Matthew Palladino’s ‘Circuit Board (Ancient Relief)’ makes connections. Gold, accurately, veins the board, ROYGBIV wired spine. A matted LCD drained of life screens a 3D scanned relief. Ancient lion mauls hunter, predator becomes prey, more violence on TV. Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) came in the mid-century litter of US exceptionalism; when a Mommy and a Daddy, when America and power. Development accelerated after Pearl Harbor was diagnosed a defeat of poor communication. Space Racing against Russia, the PCB was slingshot the usual: more funding, esteem, military contract. That’s just how things get done around here, folks.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair
And in a land not far enough, Jason Brown’s ‘Bondo Urgulû (Lion Deity)’ resurfaces Sumerian artefact reliefs, sculptures last seen wrapped in syrupy British fingers, late 19th-century. Relief was employed as a monotony killer, back in the day. Reprieve from plaster and sun-blanched bricks soul-corroding sameness. No vacation in sight. Those damn Anunnaki are the reason you go to work everyday. For Assyrian Kings, reliefs worked too, worked just right; king slays lion carved front page news, prehistoric “controlling the narrative”. The ‘Nature Kneels to King’ headline commanded plebs, enemies; consoled a public terrorized by these ungovernable, chaotic creatures.
Brown props up relief as an ancient technology; technology: when knowledge finds skill. Blue seeps from the Lion, that radioactive glow of religious art. The artist uses Auto Bondo, a polyester filler primarily used in car restoration. Vectorized shapes industrially sprayed create a digitized camouflage coat. Concealing the Lion is, and always has been, the goal. A special ongoing operation of self deception, carried out collectively.
We have learned nothing in twelve thirty-six thousand years.
A future envisioned in pixels, numbers, circuits, renders a present unintelligible. A technological rationale is the rationale of domination itself, Adorno said. Man vs. Nature, tale older than idiom. A struggle best kept to two, introducing a bionic third? On problems we are well fed. On its good days, art arranges the experience of estrangement, jettisoning the familiar, known. Substitute of the sublime, sublime being the inverse of uncanny. Sublime: a “show about nothing,” complete loss of self.
Strange, but not alien.
“No matter how successful you are, the haters will never go away.” – Sam Altman
