REVISIONIST RENDERINGS OF A MYTHICAL PAST

‘All utopian futures are revisionist renderings of a mythical past’, journalist Mark O’Connell sceptically conludes in his book To Be a Machine. His exploration of transhumanism (the philosophical and technological movement working on an update of the human machine) was one of the inspirations for this series of work on the correlations between religion and technology.

Coming from a religious background, Rappard is most interested series in the religious side of technology. She often noticed the Christian jargon from her childhood is returning in conversations about technology. The magical God of her youth plays a marginal role in today's disenchanted society, and it is as if technology has taken his place. The Cloud now seems all-knowing, the Singularity is by some considered a bringer of eternal life. And above all, AI is a mysterious entity for many, something you can talk to, something you can perceive a glimmer of, but whose essence remains veiled. Like God, who first appeared within a cloud.

In this series, Rappard aims to question where nowadays we place longings traditionally related to religion, such as hope, redemption, and the longing to live beyond this life.