My work is concerned with our nature. We, as humans, are capable of horrendous violence and unspeakable love. Often the same individual expresses extremes on both sides of their nature within a lifetime. Violence and love are tied into our evolutionary path as a species, and both are responsible for our success as a species. When we perceive a threat to ourselves, or to those who we love, we aggressively defend what is ours. The urge to acquire resources to ensure the success of our tribe is the core of greed. In the pursuit of economic stability for our group, we must compete against or collaborate with other bands of humans for limited resources. We compete best when we do not consider the humanity of the other. Though their claim on resources may be equivalent in merit to our own, we instinctively place our claim, our right, to the resource above theirs. We strip them of their humanity so that we may treat them in a way which would be criminal if such treatment occurred within our own group. The core of our inability to solve global crises is rooted in our inherent desire to provide for our loved ones. We do not want to adopt policies that will put our nations at a disadvantage to our competition. But we are not all bad. We are a generous, loving and compassionate species. One remarkable trait we have is the ability to examine our nature and choose not to follow our evolutionary predispositions. We laud those among us who undertake the great challenge of going against their fears and desires. It is a long and tiresome task. Most of us will never choose this path. So, is it possible to gracefully survive the crises of our day with 7 billion of us still bound to our nature?
My work suggests possible solutions for working with our nature to solve our problems and also considers the potential for the collapse of our civilization. As an example, the Gardening Robotic Wanderer is a robot whose sole purpose is to remediate ecologically damaged sites. It trundles across the landscape, slow and clumsy, dropping native wildflowers and compost every few feet. GRoW is not meant to be a practical device. The work proposes a possible future in which technology is built for non-anthropocentric purposes and exists in a symbiotic relationship with the natural world. As we tend to use our technology for anthropocentric purposes, this could be seen as a generous application of technology. GRoW´s purpose is to inspire thought and conversation regarding public perceptions of the relationship between humanity, technology and the natural world and the assumptions underlying those perceptions. The intent is always to raise questions, not provide answers.
In the video Unattended Baggage, I show a loving husband who is also clearly planning to bomb something or someone. The video offers the viewer a chance to reflect on the human behind an act of terrorism. It does not tell the viewer what to think, but offers them a perspective other than the dominant stereotypes of who a terrorist is.