INTERNATIONAL
subConch
Documentation of subConch. Image courtesy of the artist.
Project statement:
Occasionally we long for a more genuine experience of life. For the lack of this, we blame
modernity—thinking we are alienated captives of technology. But I say, look around you and you’ll
see the natural state of man. There was no wrong turn, loss of innocence or original sin—the use
of tools to enhance our species has been with us since the very beginning.
Now the human experience is saturated with such tools—our gadgets, phones, and keyboards
have become parts of our bodies. We are in essence cyborgs. Still, there’s a way to go before we are
completely integrated. The dream is a completely invisible device, a device that will let you just
think of something to make it happen. Do you think such a device that make you feel alienated or
empowered?
The answer is obvious. Our culture is drunk on technopower—we’ve become almighty deities
since we started burning the black gold. Cyborg existence is, and has always been, the ultimate
goal, the final separation from the animal kingdom, the escape from our bodies, the escape from
mortality. To be human is to be machine. To be machine is to be God.
- The artist, Mats J. Sivertsen
Mats J. Sivertsen is a visual artist, living and working in Oslo, Norway. His work attempts to show
various aspects of how transhumanism may look and feel. While his earlier work pokes fun at notions
of empowerment through cyborg existence, the subConch not only celebrates such ideas but also lets
you experience exactly how it feels to be a genuinely enhanced human being.
Read more about this project at: http://www.mats-sivertsen.net/subconch.html and http://www.subconch.net/
SciArt in America December 2014
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