GOD?

GOD? Oil on on linen 41 x 51 cm 2019

No answers

Only questions

Colourful zeros and ones

'Instruct'

The word

GOD

This painting depicts an algorithmic representation of the word GOD:  

01000111 01001111 01000100. 

The painting also depicts an ambiguous landscape with diagonal lines that cut through it.

Is the binary code - the string of colourfully painted zeros and ones - a representation of GOD? Note the question mark in the title of the painting. But, there is no question mark, or instructed binary code question mark - 00111111 - depicted in the painting. Is this GOD a proxy?

  

Here are a few more questions! Is the painting a representation of GOD in a landscape or GOD as landscape? Is it a real landscape or a computer generated landscape? Perhaps the diagonal lines convey orienting graphics on a computer screen, maybe the screen of a remote militarised drone pilot? Maybe it is a computer game? Is there a target?

What does the binary code 'instructing' the word GOD mean? I don't have an answer - there was a lot going on in my head when I painted it! However, this question can, perhaps, be addressed with other questions, such as  - where, what and how is GOD in the age of the algorithm, the era of the drone, and the epoch of ubiquitous surveillance, and increasingly autonomous systems? 

Regular readers will know where these questions come from.

A recent post HUMAN or Algorithm has more of my paintings depicting colourfully painted strings of binary code that playfully, but critically, 'instruct'.

I'll leave it to you now.

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NEWS

Check out the Aesthetics of Drone Warfare project, University of Sheffield, UK

And, particularly check out the project's forthcoming conference, February 2020.

I am speaking.

And, you will notice that my painting New Horizons is the conference image!

Cheers

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com