Iron Sky

Using the machinic gaze, ‘Iron Sky’ explores the development of technology, and our increasing reliance on computation becoming a concern in relation to privacy and identity. Privacy is a right, but with large corporate companies collecting data, we become easy to manipulate, we behave more cautiously, less subversively, and lose touch with the scientific fact- we are humans. Taking inspiration from Charlie Chaplin’s speech from ‘The Great Dictator’, I created a video piece accompanied with audio. The audio has a voiceover of Siri reading out the speech whilst mixed with shazammed songs from the public. The songs were collected by the disruption of an individual’s personal space, to hone in on the constant reminder throughout the work that visibility is nothing but a trap. In 5 years time, I question who will be the new state. We live and will continue to live in an era of corporate power where globalised entities such as Google or Apple seem to be more prevalent. A revolution is embedded in our human spirit, and the relevance and desire will soon come to a peak, so I ask if the people will unite? Unite when they’re stripped of free will, when they start to merge with machines, when they cease to be identifiable as humans. The video is projected in exhibitions which was a decision to look into reality currently; the constant motion of pixels formulating faces was representative of the notion that humans will exist only as numbers, to be fed into something bigger than the individual; processed into the mass population represented by the right imagery. Freezing the frame at the end is an opportunity for reflection, for consolidation with the eye in the sky. Do you continue to look only up? Conclusion: Our humanity is, in some ways, under existential threat.