Flag

Flags are deceptively simple things; seemingly bright and cheerful, they can also be heralds of humanity's darker nature. 

I applied for this year's Royal Society of Sculptors' 1st Plinth: Public Art Award; an award in which the winning applicant gets funding and support to create a new sculpture that is temporarily displayed outside of the RSS gallery in South Kensington, London. 

Even though my submission was unsuccessful I still found the application process useful because the award is themed (this year's being 'Parade'), and working to a theme prompted me to consider lines of enquiry outside of my usual artistic sphere, and thus generate new ideas for potential future artworks.

I approached the theme of Parade from the angle of ceremony, flags, banners and pageantry, while also addressing the related human cost of nationalism and military conflict.

As you can see from the maquette that I made, I proposed a sculpture that consists of a painted metal flag pole, atop of which is a long, rigid (made of metal or reinforced fibreglass) but gently undulating, ribbon-like flag. Brightly painted in enamel, with 14 different coloured vertical columns, the flag visually echoes that of a medal/service ribbon bar, as worn by military personnel during ceremonial events. However, the width of the coloured bands vary proportionally in relation to the number of human lives lost during each of the 14 major world conflicts (ones with death tolls greater than 25,000 human lives lost) that began since the start of the 21st Century. 

These conflicts (with the numbers of lives lost) are, the War on Terror (272,000-1,260,000), War in Afghanistan (212,191+), Iraq War (405,000-654,975), War in Darfur (300,000+), Kivu Conflict (100,000), Insurgence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (45,900-79,000), Mexican Drug War (150,000-250,000), Boko Haram Insurgence (350,000+), Syrian Civil War (499,000-610,000), Rojava-Islamic Conflict (50,000+), War in Iraq, 2013-2017 (195,000-200,000), Yemeni Civil War (377,000+), Russo-Ukranian War  (40,000-200,000), and the Tigray War (300,000-500,000).

Synthetic Bodies & Minds

I’ll warn you in advance that this blog post is mostly based upon notes from my notebook entry of 11th Feb. 2023, and is primarily about what I had going through my head after waking from a thought provoking dream. So apologies if it’s a bit rambling. I’ve illustrated the post with some of my artwork that loosely (admittedly, sometimes looser than an old pair of underpants where the elastic has perished) touches on the topics I discuss.

'Baby Kit', sculpture, 1998, by artist Wayne Chisnall

For the last three nights I’ve not slept as fully and deeply as I normally would. Usually I fall asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow. As well as being awake for large portions of the last three nights, I’ve also had periods of semi-wakefulness/semi-sleep in which I’ve been, only what I can call, ‘dream-thinking’ – that peculiar state of abstract thought that only makes sense in the borderlands between sleep and wakefulness (and upon fully waking, is nonsensical).

This morning I surfaced from a shallow dream, thinking about a possible future alongside synthetic humans (it’s only as I write this now that I remember, back in 2012, being asked by Purdue University in the US if they could use an image of my life-size model kit sculpture, ‘And When I’m a Man, I’ll Think As a Man’, for a poster advertising a lecture called ‘Synthetic Life: a New Industrial Revolution?’). This train of dream-thought was definitely triggered by my current reading material. At the moment I’m reading a few books written or partly set within the 19th Century – H. G. Wells’ ‘The Sleeper Awakes’, Alasdair Gray’s ‘Poor Things’, and Jeannette Winterson’s ‘Frankissstein’. The last two books take inspiration from Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ (a book that has greatly influenced much of my artwork); more so with Winterson’s book, which actually incorporates Mary Shelley as a character, as well as drawing parallels between the creation of the Monster in Shelley’s book and the coming of the AI age.

Anyway – back to my dream thoughts. I must have been dreaming about medical advances where defective body parts could be replaced with synthetic/artificially created versions (although, I don’t now recall any such dream) because once I remerged into the conscious world I lay in bed thinking about it for some time. I contemplated a time, in a not too distant future, where these synthetic replacements for failing organs and limbs would be commonplace. I reasoned that this would initially happen for medical reasons but, knowing human nature, envisaged that people would soon opt for fully synthesised bodies just because they can, and because they’d no longer have to worry about trivialities such as illness, or mortality for that matter. In this possible future I’m imagining a synthetic body that is more akin to a natural biological one, complete with the sense of touch, and the ability to self-repair – much like our own current bodies, only more reliably so. I’m thinking along the lines of a more aesthetically pleasing (because, given the choice, who wouldn’t want a body that looked a bit better than the original) and more hardwearing upgrade, rather than an artificial-looking, robot body. Although, given the current popularity of cosmetic surgery and comedic facial modifications (‘trout pout’ lips and bizarre eye brow shaping etc.) I’m sure that there will be many eager to embrace the obviously counterfeit. 

As the brain is also part of the physical body I can easily imagine a time (possibly not so near future though) when that too can be successfully scanned and reproduced in artificial form. Hence, a person might become fully artificial. And at which point, if any, does a person cease to be themselves? If a person has their body parts replaced bit by bit, I imagine that until the brain is replaced, as long as the replacement body parts look, work and feel the same, they might still feel like the same person. However, if in the case of something like early stages dementia, where it became necessary to replace the brain with an exact copy (albeit an artificial one, but with all the previous memories and feelings of the original restored to good working order), would the ‘restored’ version of that person feel that they are still their authentic self? Even if they did, how could they be sure? And how could their friends and family be sure? 

By this point in the future maybe they would have dispensed with the brain swap operation altogether and simply go for fully synthesising a completely new body and brain (scanned to still perfectly match the original person’s memories, thoughts, feelings, preferences and emotions) from scratch, and simply putting the organic original to sleep, then ending its (I just noticed how easily I went from ‘their’ to ‘its’) life, and disposing of the body.

'Pharos Cyclops #1', sculpture, by artist Wayne Chisnall

Interestingly, if this full body and mind replacement became the norm, what would this replacement version do with their old body? Would they have a funeral for themselves? This could be interesting as they could attend it and get to hear what people said about them. Maybe an open casket would be a bit freaky, especially with the upgraded version walking about like a non-evil doppelganger. Although, after the initial novelty of the first of these, I imagine that these ‘selfie funerals’ would either become a social rites of passage, or the norm would be for the body to be discreetly incinerated as medical waste.

'Doll Arm', acrylic on plywood wall plaque, by artist Wayne Chisnall

I do wonder though, what psychological effects these rebirths would have upon the artificial reincarnations. To prevent emotional trauma would viewing the corpse of their earlier/natural selves be considered a no-no, and become a social taboo?

And how would ‘natural’ partners, friends and family take to the synthetic replacement? Or would the synthetic stage just become the norm – nothing more than a medical procedure, and one of the accepted stages of life?

Obviously, with few people dying, accelerated population growth would became an issue, especially if humans (both natural and synthetic) carried on reproducing.

'Torso and Arm', oil on MDF box structure, by artist Wayne Chisnall

Organic life is susceptible to things such as viruses, and so are human-created devices such as computers. With this in mind, if it became possible to create synthetic brains then would it also be possible to hack them? If so, then would hackers be able to influence what these new forms of humanity saw, felt and thought? Could the hackers change the new humans’ perceptions of reality; make some things, people or creatures invisible to the new humans, and their environments appear different to how they really are? And if so, has it already happened? Have we already gone through this stage and been modified to think that we’re back to being naturally organic again? I guess this line of enquiry stumbles into the whole ‘brains in jars’ and ‘simulated reality’ field of thought. I do enjoy these playful thought experiments but can see how easily they could lead down conspiracy theory rabbit holes.

'Scrotal Teapot', oil on book cover, 2020, by artist Wayne Chisnall

Some people fear that once AI finally becomes a reality, that it (will it be an ‘it’ or will it have separate identities and be a ‘they’?) will exterminate or subjugate the human race. But maybe we’ll unwittingly exterminate ourselves by creating artificial versions of ourselves that we believe to still be us, but which are merely masquerading as us until we’ve voluntarily removed our biological selves from existence. Whether or not the new synthetic version of humanity contains the authentic selves, I suppose it could be seen as an evolutionary step (from the fragile organic to the potentially immortal inorganic), or one of innumerable evolutionary steps; for once we are liberated from our fleshy containers there are few limitations to what forms we or our artificial descendants might take.

Biomorphic Dreams

As far back as I can remember, the natural world has always filled me with a sense of wonder. Rembrandt knew what he was talking about when he said "Choose only one master - nature". You can always tell when an artist, who draws plant or animal life, has really studied their subject closely. They come to some level of understanding, if only on a visual level, of the mechanisms of nature. I feel that drawing is as much the art of seeing as it is that of rendering.

Detail of 'The City' sculpture, 1999, by artist Wayne Chisnall

Ivy vines, especially the thick and gnarly ones that envelop massive trees, have always been a particular fascination of mine. When I was young I used to incorporate them in my paintings and even today I frequently use vines in my sculptures. I love the innate purposefulness evident in the plant's form; how its biological drives govern the way it grows, with the fascinating irregularities and meandering pathways of its branches. Even when I'm creating sculptures that aren't designed to represent biological organisms per se, I often try to create a sense of the organic in the visual flow of the piece. Although my tower and box sculptures are predominantly made up of lots of straight lines and right angles, I try to construct them in an organic manner, with an eye towards a naturalistic sense of balance or proportion.  

'Orifice Tower' sculpture, 2012, by artist Wayne Chisnall

I'm writing about all of this because of what was going through my head after waking from a dream that I had a few mornings ago. The dream related to a job I had in the late 80s and early 90s, where I was employed as a technical illustrator for a Japanese company called Ricoh. In this job I used to illustrate the assembly/instruction manuals that the factory workers used to build the photocopiers that the company manufactured. This was back when all the illustrations were drawn by hand - ink pen on paper. Unfortunately I no-longer have any examples of the illustrations that I produced way back then, which is why all the photos I've included in this post more closely relate to the use of vines and other organic materials, that I mention incorporating in my sculptural work.

In the aforementioned dream I was in a large white room and scattered on the floor and pinned up on the walls were blown up copies of my original illustrations. All the ones that caught my dream eye were of masses of wires and cables that were clumped together with cable ties. The reason that they stood out to me was that individually they resembled fibrous mounds, and jumbled together the sheets of paper collectively looked almost like a landscape. I was reminded of natural formations - particularly of the sort of hills that one might see in old Japanese or Chinese prints and watercolours.

Detail of 'Pharos Cyclops #1' sculpture, 28, by artist Wayne Chisnall

For many years I had tried to draw a line in the sand between my early life as a technical and magazine illustrator, and my later carer as fine artist. Even though many of my favourite artists are cartoonists and illustrators, I think that when I first went to art college, where I studied Fine Art, I naively felt the need to try and put that earlier aspect of my work behind me. Fortunately it was always there somewhere. The drawing precision that I gained from four years of technical illustration at Ricoh has always stuck with me (unless I'm particularly tired or distracted) - even emerging when I use my fast, scribbly drawing style. Even so, it wasn't until I had this dream that any connection (discounting the honed draughtsmanship skills) between my former technical illustrator life and my current fine art life was brought home to me. For the first time I properly noticed the similarity between the biological structures that so fascinate me, and the internal component arrangements of the machines that I'd been drawing all those years ago - the connecting factor being that their structural formations are governed by functionality. Admittedly the outer casings of human-manufactured machines also have a functional concern but aesthetics plays a large part in a product's outer appearance. That's not to say that the aesthetic wouldn't have a biomorphic slant - we are, ourselves, part of nature after all, so our sense of what is beautiful or pleasing will be informed by the environment we evolved in. What I'm particularly interested in, with internal machine components (in areas of the machine where it is not intended that users of the machine will ever look, so no concession to aesthetics is required), are instances of unintentional biomorphism that emerge for purely practical reasons, as they do in the none decorative side of the natural world.

Detail of 'The City' sculpture, 1999, by artist Wayne Chisnall

Anyway, this gives me plenty of food for thought and another possible line of creative enquiry. Maybe I should see if I can get an artist's residency at an electronics manufacturing company.