5C

5C (Brave New World) is Technology-inspired art. The intention is to make the composition beautiful and eerie at the same time.

We can do great many good deeds with technology, we have mapped out the human genome, are in the process of eradicating hereditary diseases, we experiment with genetic design and we have tremendous strides forward with nano particles. It is all very good. 10 out of 10 points for that.

However, there are some paradoxes as to where we invest our energies as a species. We know more about space than our deepest oceans. We do not know exactly why bee populations are in decline. However, we know we cannot exist without either the bees or the health of our oceans. The same cannot be said about the other topics. Genetics clearly knows how to look after itself, and if we did not explore space it would leave us undisturbed most of the time.

In a way the figure we see here is a symbol of all the weird and wonderful things we can do. The flying objects are microbots. They are our backup plan if bees die out. With so-called swarm technology they are tiny robots which can pollinate plants much the same way that bees do. Wyss Institute have developed these RoboBees, and as alluded to earlier, that might actually help save us one day.

By the way ‘Brave New World’ is a dystopian science fiction novel by English author Aldous Huxley, published in 1932. Apparently it takes place in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy. The novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning. Approximately 90 years after the first edition of the novel, that summary sounds pretty much like our globalised society today.

You can find more technology-inspired art in the series Augmented here.

Title/Titel/Titel/Títolo #5C, Acrylic and oil on canvas/ Akryl und Öl auf Leinwand/Akryl og olie på lærred/Acrílica e óleo sobre tela 80x100cm, Year/Jahr/År/Ano 2017, anders dyhr

Sold in October 2019 via Galleri Habsø A/S