THE TOWER OF BABEL – A Tower of Light

Since McLuhan identified we humans as living in a global village, there has been a gathering sense – enhanced by the work of Nam Jun Paik, that human life has been speeding up.

The Situationists identified this is a generator of dis-ease in people and that recognition eventuated in the Paris riots of 1968. Over time the pressure has increased in terms of spectacularising people’s lives ad then the personal mobile phone defined most people’s sense of self as having to take the stance of being a hero in their lifetime. Around you all the time you see the pressure especially on young women and young men as they adopt posses that define them as movie stars in their own lifetime.

Now with the rise of the right, once again as applying the pressures on us – and with Putin’s 20 year project of disinformation and also now with deep fakes our sense of what is right and wrong and what is true and what is false – also prompted further by the idea that all people can be artists at the touch of a button – all of which leads to a deeper and deeper sense of unease in people’s personal lives.

The Tower of Babel brings the problem centrally into ‘a broadcasting tower’ of pain and unease on one level – so for a time it provides a cacophonic background to our lives – and then switches into a mode of calm. During the later stages of the work these modes switch faster and faster until they both occur at the same time – Pain and Salvation then occur at the same time until everything stops in a dark period (all of this the metaphor for the big bang and what follows universally into the heat death of the universe) until the whole 60 minute exposition that the tower represents occurs once more.

THE TOWER OF BABEL – A Tower of Light

Audiences will come upon a 200cms high triangular installation – similar to a tree in shape – scattered with 12 frames with images on the frames of heightened and concentrated media forms – facing in all directions. The Tower of Babel brings the problem of contemporary social media and its effects on the citizen centrally into ‘a broadcasting tower’ of pain and unease on one level – so for a time it provides a cacophonic soundscape – and then switches into a mode of calm. These periods speed up until eventually they both occur at the same time – the metaphors of Pain and Salvation until everything stops in a darker quieter period (all of this the metaphor for the big bang and what follows universally into the heat death of the universe) until the whole 60 minute exposition that the tower represents occurs once more. 

This is essentially a triangular based wire frame (not dissimilar to a large postcard retail unit) 200cms high coming to a point like a radio tower – with each side of the base 90 cms wide at the bottom (the widest footprint) is a triangle of 3 x 90cms) which is tower upon which 12 frames in both portrait and landscape aspect ratio are placed with each artists interpretation of the cataclysm of media being hurled at the audience in todays world. 

12v DC cables run from 3 x 5 outlet dc power units from inside the frame. The overall structure will require power into the unit.

The frames are self-illuminated. 

The sound will be local to each frame but together will sound like a swarm of buzzing bees. 

Light levels should be low near the installation.