Iran's enriched Uranium has now reached 84 percent, reaching a state enough for the creation of an atomic bomb within the next 12 days according to the Iran International Independent news agency, yet somehow, the United States refuses to list the IRGC as a terroristic organization. World War III may have been previously put off, but with current methods of handling events, there is no saying how long we have before tragedy strikes.
In her book "Duty-Free Art," Hito Steyerl dissects the multi-faceted exchange between art, technology, and politics. She explores the implicative pattern algorithms that show us what we want to see based on underlying desires that we may personally be unaware of, through machine learning technology that tracks the movement of our irises and every seemingly simple step of our digital journey to ensure that political and monetary agendas are met by those who developed these technologies and those who invested in them, leading to a skewed and limited view of the world based on preconceived belief systems.
We live in a world that is more connected than ever; however, we are seemingly completely disconnected from reality. An abundance of information is readily available to us through a search of the World Wide Web, yet ironically this abundance of knowledge doesn't make us powerful in the ways that are desperately needed, to heal our unruly, crumbling world.
One cause of this tragedy is our accelerated desensitization toward the suffering of the "other". As Hito also points out, we have built entertaining videogames modeled after real-world wars, completely disregarding the implications such use of context has on the perception of the world and those nations in constant suffering. It has become normal for us to view the casualties of wars fought across the globe as mere statistics in nations where war and oppression is a way of life and anything else seems to be out of nature as if those experiencing it every day just build a super-human mental shield that remains untouched by the constant violence experienced. In academia, we read books that if not glorify the decolonization efforts of the previous conquerors, trying to move past their implications by shifting focus to more present-day struggles against technology or justifying the horrendous acts of the past motivated by the same notion of power and profit, and by doing less than the unacceptable bare minimum. (e.g Land Acknowledgments at OU, a college which still retains the motto, boomer sooner.) We seem confused about how nations under previous colonial siege have failed to recover, and continue to see their suffering as separate from us, pointing fingers at religious beliefs and inhumane groups such as Daesh as hell raisers on earth, or interestingly blaming Africa's overall lagging economic and infrastructural development on a failure to historically advance in science and technology, government mismanagement, and genetic diversity (courtesy of the Guardian, the Washington Post, SoS-usa.org), as if current world events are separate from the history that is deliberately and passively being pushed towards erasure.
One interesting concept to keep in mind when exploring these confusions is, again, the power of language and what it means that much of the world's data available on the internet is maintained and written in English, by English-speaking scholars. It seems that in the same way that 'an artist who does not speak English is no artist', a third-world nation without an English-speaking histographer is no independent, legitimate nation, as it is the English-speaking bystander who documents the historical recollections and contemporary issues of these nations.
If the intelligent technology backing servers and knowledge databases such as google, in addition to social media platforms, have headquarters and thus designers and engineers based primarily in capitalist america, what kind of information are the hypnotizing algorithms modeled after and how does this affect the belief system of the masses? If this system is failing to facilitate a base level understanding and comprehension of our holistic world and its history and contemporary condition, are we truly competent to be creating and assessing works of art to bridge the gap between humanity? Are we even in the position to be creating political artwork? Hoping for a handful of patient observers to get the context of what we're trying to convey through our intellectual, aesthetically arranged art content? Or is the world going to come to an abrupt end due to our ignorance and failure to take responsibility to expose ourselves to the truth, and to do so quickly? How long can we continue to ignore the, for example, terroristic inhumane Iranian government for the sake of cheap oil? Will we have to get threatened with a nuke that directly affects us to act? Will we have to personally die from malnutrition to take a stance against climate change and climate migration? Will we ever begin to care unless we get directly affected? if so, what can trigger that to happen, if it were to do so through the lens of an artistic practice?
With a world in urgent need of direct action, although conceptual political art may not be the current sollution, mindful carthography can begin acting as an instrument of understanding and powerful outcome. In her essay, Hito Steyerl references the Arab Spring, how it was photographed and represented in media, in comparrison to the internal use of internet and technology to organize demonstrations that eventually lead to a successful demand for partial change. Steyerl notes that art and media have always played a role in political struggles, and that the digital age has opened up new possibilities for creative expression and political engagement. In this context, one might think of the Arab Spring and the revoultion in Egypt, made possible through the use of Facebook and other social media groups as a means of implicit assembly and how possible external engagement can be harbored for example if access to such virtual gatherings are limited due to state sanctioned internet access.
Through possibly carthographic art and updatable data visualizations used in projects such as "Forensic Architecture", which use digital technologies to investigate human rights abuses and war crimes, architects, artists, and activists are brough together to create 3D models and visualizations of sites of violence and oppression, such as prisons, refugee camps, and conflict zones. These visualizations are used as evidence in legal cases and as tools for advocacy and education.
The challenge, however, still lies on how such projects can be made more accessible, legible, and 'aesthetically appealing' to educate not only those who are previously aware of the issues at hand, but a larger, previously misunderstood or desensitized audience, in order to build a stronger active advocacy community, to drive positive change for injustice regardless of geographic location and context.
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