Wednesday, March 5

COGNITION (BORDERS) | AFT

S PANDITA - VGD LMJ - MMD3307 LOGOS... - 004

Two cases have been observed with remarkable ramifications.

Whilst we relentlessly press against the limitations that we have discovered, we may not actually be prepared for what lies beyond. Science for the sake of science is rarely questioned, but is that not the essence of my project?

Do not fix what isn't broken. The fact that we push and push would imply that we are not whole but incomplete. Do we feel this drive to develop because we, from the moment of our conscious arrival, feel the urge to modify and improve without end. Some of us certainly live with varying degrees of advancement but is anyone ever truly satisfied with their development?

This occurred to me as I watched the first entrant lose control of his body as it developed at an alarming rate. I saw not only a self-destructive outburst of bio-mechanical growth but a striking analogy for our own behaviour as a species. Is it simply that in achieving independent thought we have disengaged from the will of humanity and surged forth as a rogue organism, a cancer whose purpose is no longer biological but rather viral? I still fantasize about the artistic applications of the technology of the future but, whilst I await a world that is the palette of our own phantasmagoria, we struggle under the crippling weight of our own over development. Nothing about our populous suggests natural harmony or health. Resources are being exhausted and the population still expands, people become grossly obese and yet poor lifestyles are prolific and often unavoidable, mental illness is prevalent but life becomes increasingly pressured and people isolated. Perhaps my friend is right; in an organism each cell is in harmony, here we all suffer under the weight of each other.

The latter subjugate entrant described a meeting with a higher being before expiring. It claimed to be his deity. Such an abstract concept was no doubt difficult to convey but there was a definite connection between the desire to relate omniscience and the ever present hum of our loyal machines. There is an innate belief that through technology lies our salvation. Because technology over time is only limited by our ingenuity and it is this quality that generated the concept of god in the first place. One comment that was made struck me; "I am a tool of the almighty, he moves through me." We still view mechanism, by definition, by their functional use for mankind. But when we use machines, by interfacing with them, through us they are imbued with meaning. If we use a machine in place of our body does our body then lose its meaning? I wonder if people in the past who had rudimentary prosthetic limbs felt the same familiarity we do today. Whenever I see myself in the dark reflections of the window I can't help but ask questions to the thin air around me. When the artificial becomes the equal of organic, will the lines be maintained or blurred? When technology moves beyond the reach of the organic, what then? Again I imagine an embracing of new borders. Unfortunately, I fear prejudice is the true answer.

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