IN THE NEAR FUTURE
(THE CONVERSION OF CULTURAL ERADICATION INTO AN AMUSING TOY)
This was an entry for Pratt Students Respond: Politics and Media at Pratt Brooklyn's Schafler Gallery. It was a terrific exhibit of student work that was overflowing with emotional protests - a very youthful vibe. My contribution took the opposite approach; trading in personal touches for mass-produced sterility. For Conversion, the viewer is invited to read through the scroll by pulling on the printed list of international cities.This isa straightforward subject that should nonetheless be watched carefully; the homogenization of individual cultures in favor of economic gain is happening constantly. It's hard to argue with results however, when buying into the Western construct allows for so many people to access goods and medicine that wouldn't be available otherwise.
In Larry Niven's Ringworld, the advent of global teleportation brings with it the boring (to the protagonist) result of every destination being the same as the last. The capitalist system will always favor that which is cheaper and more efficient - is this a bad way of living?
Above, a shot I took last year in Accra (one of the listed cities).
All images on this site are licensed by Benjamin Andrew under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.