The first series of Hierocodic bas-reliefs deals with some distortions that refer to the concept of «large quantity» and so it will be also for many other bas-reliefs of other series. Most of the world’s disturbances originate in matters related to abnormal size or quantity – money, weapons, waste, arable land, animals, looted resources, exploited people or on the move, power, privileges – which are then the preferred measures of neoliberalism and capitalism in general. Whereas everything that in a given situation is present in large quantity represents an anomaly with respect to the parameters of civilized life and in harmony with nature, and therefore implies a problem of the utmost urgency. From the great wealth concentrated in a single asset and undertaxed earnings, to the migration of people who move in search of more humane living standards, often leaving behind wars, poverty, political instability or extreme climatic conditions; from the capillary cocaine trade in all the inhabited parts of the Earth, to the micro and macro-plastic that colonize the fresh or salt water of any aquatic context. Even the personal and behavioural data collected without our knowledge, represented in the bas-reliefs by the frames of small white labels (data frame), are always handled in large quantities and only this mode allows significant economic returns.
In reality as in the Hierocodic bas-reliefs of the series LARGE QUANTITIES, the mining activity (data mining), accumulation, analysis and use of personal and social data is the tragic backdrop to a shipwreck of migrants off the Mediterranean coast rather than an intensive breeding where animals live in desperate conditions; to the deforestation in Amazonia and Mato Grosso to make huge plantations of soybeans rather than to the overcrowded prisons of this or that nation; to the endless Israeli-Palestinian and all the other countless wars going on our planet rather than the fiery server rooms through which the data itself passes.
All human beings perform actions and experience feelings and emotions, so that at any time of their life more or less difficult or prosperous, exploited or by torturers or speculators, or even just indifferent observers, they are the subject of data collection campaigns, their personality, emotional life, behaviour and conversations are translated and transformed (rendered) into data to be used at least for targeting commercial offers, directly from the collecting companies or through their transfer to third parties, who benefit in the same way.
The series LARGE QUANTITIES currently includes the following sub-series: CONTAINER SHIPS (5 bas-reliefs), DELIVERY TRUCKS (4), GRAIN SILOS (3), INTENSIVE FARMING (4), MIGRANT SHIPWRECKS (2), PIPELINE (4), SERVER ROOMS (5) and THE COCAINE ATLAS (17).
44 bas-reliefs
Various sizes
2024
Inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Matt Baryta 308 gsm