ROT

 

ROT, Gouache on paper, 56 x 76cm, 2025

I was thinking about so many issues when I painted ROT. I had just been to a panel discussion at Brisbane's Institute of Modern Art (IMA), Brain Rot in the Gallery. At the time, the IMA was screening episodes from the violent Skibidi Toilet animated Youtube series. The panel discussed the issue of brain rot in conjunction with responses to the series. Sadly the discussion did not ask why the IMA was showing the series, without further contextual elements (their screening room had no other curated challenges, contexts). Or, why a series started in 2023 had made it into a gallery space only a mere two years later. There were so many more questions, but that's for another time. 

The issue of brain rot, said to be caused or triggered by consistently consuming online content, now dominated by AI extruded content, had been of interest to me for some time. It connects with my interests in disinformation, misinformation, cognitive warfare, bot-produced content and responses, speed of content production and dissemination. Regular readers will understand my interest in speed. In our hyperconnected world (from earth-to-satellites), speed of dissemination is enable by lightspeed (or near) signal connectivity. Delivery of 'rot' to our devices is, therefore, beyond-human in both speed and scale of dissemination. I am interested in 'rot's' connection with new modes warfare - hybrid, grey-zone, information, cognitive warfare - perpetrated by drawing signal-enabled digital and cyber civilian devices and systems into militarised spaces and activities. 

ROT

In ROT, what appears to be a human brain is occupied by computer-like circuitry. This visually plays with the idea that the brain is a computer - an idea that stems from 1940's early AI research and the coining of terms such as neural network. The brain-as-computer idea has mediated and hijacked how many people think about human thinking, creativity, emotions and more. 

Radiating lines that extend from the 'brain' indicate signal connectivity, and therefore, interoperability with other nodes. Strings of binary code 'instructing' the word ROT also indicate signals and connectivity, and the dispersal of ROT as a contagion through a system. The painted signals appear to extend beyond the painting. This infers that in our hyperconnected world ROT is not contained and can reach anywhere. 

As a viewer, are you above, below, or in front of the image? No matter what your perspective, the blood-red background is meant to be unnerving. A human being bleeds, but machines, devices, algorithms, and signals do not. The red is not an oil slick. 

The unsolicited AI ALT Text that appeared when I loaded this image into a recent PowerPoint presentation encapsulates the insidiousness of AI rotting processes. The AI's banal description elides nuance, and therefore meaning.

Alt Text: A red and white watercolor painting:                             
AI-generated content may be incorrect 

I will leave it there for you to ponder more.

Kathryn