SENSORED

Sensored oil on linen 50 x 50 cm 2017

We humans are increasingly 'sensored' beings. By this, I mean, we are equipped with, attached to or carrying devices that are operated by digital and cyber systems that interconnect across skies, land, seas and space. They interconnect using even more devices such as satellites, land-based receivers, servers and more. 

The devices we interact with, whether a phone, a car, a computer, an implant or other - 'sensorise' us. They make us a part of, or even a node in, cyber and digital networking systems. And - in a funny way, they also censor/ise us, but maybe we have not fully comprehended this yet? 

Transhuman - Translandscape

As our bodies carry devices in ways that transform us into transhuman-like creatures, they also transform the way our landscape or environment operates or is viewed. For example, skies 'colonised' by unmanned weaponised airborne drones change the way the sky is perceived. This is particularly so in places such as Yeman, Somalia and Afghanistan where the skies are seen by many as harbouring a potential lethality. In these cases the landscape becomes vulnerable, offering little refuge when vertical surveillance penetrates even the privacy of everyday life. A landscape crisscrossed with humans carrying and using devices, and buildings equipped with even more, develops another layer - not geographic - but, an unseen layer of signals. These signals variously traverse the globe, bounce from earth to satellites and back again. A 'translandscape' possibly? Another recent painting and post Space Net refers to this kind of activity. 

Sensored

In Sensored red 'signals' emanate from behind a cloud. What lurks behind this cloud? A drone maybe? The red signals continue beyond the painting. They indicate a wide net, a net of surveillance. In doing so, they reveal how the sky is now 'sensored' in a way that is not dissimilar to the 'sensorising' of human beings. It's an insidious process - don't you think? 

Like many of my paintings - dronescapes, landscapes. cosmic landscapes - the viewer could be above the clouds looking down upon a landscape, maybe a seascape. In this case a drone is possibly lurking below the clouds. However, the viewer could also be on the ground looking up into the sky where a drone could potentially be lurking above the clouds. With these two possible perspectives the painting somehow provides a powerful stimulus for imaginative flying around a drone - in ways that turn the surveillance back onto it.    

_________________________________________________________________________________

WESTERN QUEENSLAND 

Now for something a bit different. The photo below is me in the very back of a landcruiser. We've just driven around checking cattle. 

I spent a fabulous weekend out in Western Queensland - Roma, Mitchell and Mungallala. 

An old school friend has a cattle property beyond Mungallala. We had a camp fire, damper, homemade sausages. And, we helped check on cattle, their water [it is very dry]. We saw a brown snake - early for the season. We saw hundreds of kangaroos, both dead an alive. And, emus - so many - all alive! We went to the Mitchell Art Show, the Mitchell Camel and Pig Races, and had a wonderful dip in the Mitchell artesian spa. One of us bought a hat, a country man's hat, from the fabulous Samios Trading Post store in Mitchell. Two people in our group were from Europe and it was so much fun to see country Australia through their eyes. Everything, absolutely everything, was new to them. 

We spent a day in Roma too. Visited Moorelands nursery where you can have a bite to eat amongst an oasis of plants, bush crafts, children playing and more. We also visited the BIG RIG which tells you all about the history of the oil and gas industry out there. This recent history has been somewhat controversial with the increase in coal seam gas exploration. 

Cheers,
Kathryn

IMAGINING THE POSTHUMAN

 Imagining The Posthuman Gouache on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

Yes! Another posthuman painting for you. But in this case the posthuman could be a posthuman entity/being or the posthuman era or the posthuman place. Imagining The Posthuman, as a title, could be 'read' a few ways. I quite like that, because whilst people think about posthumanism, I do not think we are already posthuman. We maybe transhuman, to varying degrees...pacemakers, hearing aids, drug enhancements, plastic surgery and so on...BUT

I wonder if we know enough about human capabilities. What if we become fully transhuman with machine, bio-tech and artificial intelligence 'enhancements' before we understand why some people know when a loved one has died, or that someone is about to ring, or even how an artist creates a painting from imagination. What if we ignore these things and then they are forgotten, no longer experienced. What if these human attributes hold keys to even more impressive outcomes than merging with machines?

There are a lot of questions to be asked!

Imagining The Posthuman
This new painting is similar to some other recent posthuman paintings. I did say I was having fun, didn't I!? This painting is less defined yet still includes my much loved transcultural/religious tree-of-life. Unlike previous paintings this one has only one string of binary code 00111111 to form the backbone or trunk...or is it suggestive of a map, or maybe stepping stones? 00111111 is code for ?

Even though the painting has a figurative quality, it also has a sense of landscape, and I suggest it is also futuristic. So, it could be a posthuman entity ie: not human but some kind of presence? Or, it could represent the posthuman habitat which may not be tangible or material but rather systemic? Or it could represent a time in a far distant future thousands of years after humanity became extinct? Maybe it is all three entwined?

BUT

For the time being, we are still human. Phew! We may be flawed, in varying degrees, but let's make sure we give ourselves, and future generations, the time to develop in ways where reflection, critique, research, understanding and compassion drive our energies, rather than fear and haste.

My painting Keep Us Human has the word 'Human' painted repeatedly around an orange/red circle. I imagine this circle to be the 21st century and the emanating lines the various choices of futures humanity might have.

                                Keeping Us Human Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

My Future Posthuman? 
Is This A Posthuman?
Cheers,
Kathryn
www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

MY FUTURE POSTHUMAN

My Future Posthuman Gouache and watercolour on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

Regular readers will have noticed that I am having fun with the posthuman!

In my mind the posthuman is something that may happen in the future, the far distant future. I don't believe we are already posthuman. However, some people do. They believe that due to technology's mediation of minds and bodies we are no longer human and therefore we are posthuman. 

Maybe we are transhuman? Some think the process of becoming posthuman is an evolutionary one and that becoming transhuman is a stage through which evolution must pass. There are arguments that treatments and/or enhancements such as mind altering drugs, prosthetics and implants represent transhumanist change or alteration. Contemporary transhumanists such as Zoltan Istvan, Aubrey de Grey and Nick Bostrom suggest that humanity is compromised by its biology. They propose that technological intervention could 'cure' biological vulnerabilities that cause aging, death and sickness. There's political agency in this proposition! Indeed, Zoltan Istvan is a current US presidential candidate for the Transhumanist Party These types of transhumanists see technological intervention and alteration of the human as enhancing the human experience. Whereas, other transhumanists [or those who think about transhumanism] particularly from the arts/humanities see transhumanism as a way to re-create or re-invent the self.  

But, let's get back to the posthuman. 

I think the major difference between the transhuman and the posthuman is that the former is more about enhancing the human, but the latter is more about replacing the human. I enjoy thinking about what a posthuman might be like and what kind of 'existence' a posthuman might experience. So, I imagine an era where no humans remain, due to extinction caused be either our own hands or natural means, such as the sun's tumultuous demise. In the place of humans are machines that appear to have garnered the ability to mimic human modes of being. However, these modes are greatly augmented - so much so that abilities far exceed human ones - to the point where human-ness is almost indiscernible. These machines 'exist' on a far away exo-planet, having escaped Earth - or maybe humans sent them off to investigate alternative planetary homes, but not in time to actually save humanity? 

BUT, maybe there are no tangible presences? Instead only an awareness of downloaded minds, harvested from humans, even those stored in cryogenic facilities for centuries. These downloaded minds trip around the universe on light beams aided by algorithms that replicate and continually enhance. 

My Future Posthuman

In my new painting above I imagined me [or my mind] as a posthuman. But, I also decided that I could paint an imaginary friend, my posthuman imaginary friend. Indeed, perhaps I've unwittingly painted the posthuman being who is operating me as a simulation? Yep, you read right! This idea stems from Nick Bostrom's simulation argument. Please read Are You Living In A Computer Simulation?   This certainly turns the whole idea of the posthuman upside down, because Bostrom suggests that if we are living in a computer simulation, it is being run by posthumans. Does that mean we are already posthuman, even if we are only simulated? 

So - in My Future Posthuman I've painted a figure with tree-like appendages, a multicoloured heart and a head shaped like a question mark - but the question mark is formed from two rows of binary code 'instructing' the word 'Human'. Hence, the question mark! I love the tree-like wings that spring from the figure's shoulders. They and the tree-like appendages connect the figure to the outer reaches of the universe, of time and space. Regular readers will identify the trees as my visual re-interpretation of the age/old transcultural/religious tree-of-life symbol. I don't think this symbol's potency has been exhausted. That's why I gain a contrary enjoyment in juxtapositioning it with binary code. Both 'codes' have instructional qualities, although they may suggest alternative paths, which may or may not cross. 

Worth looking into though!

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com