PRE-TRASHUMAN

              Contemporary Prehistory 67,800 years after Sulawesi

 

Contemporary prehistory occurs when sensible reality is reduced to an epiphenomenon of the civilization that produces it.

Smoke follows fire.

Every civilization of this kind, before deluding itself about the nature of consciousness, simplifies and delegates.

The aim of this research is to map the breaking point where this process began, tracing a straight line from the first cave paintings to the development of urban agglomerations, up to the cages of modern bureaucracy. The circle closes today: exactly 67,800 years after Sulawesi.

The zero point of my research is a future performance and installation project for the caves of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Titled *67,800 Post-Sulawesi*, the work entails the physical placement of cutting-edge, AI-driven humanoid robots within the archaeological site that houses the world’s oldest cave paintings (dating back 67,800 years).

Inside the caves, the robots will interpret the images—the first ever painted by humanity in its most sacred space—and guide viewers toward an understanding of them through live interaction. My current works (spanning the plastic, chemical, and cryptographic realms) are not isolated pieces, but rather the logical and structural steps necessary to realize this pre-transhuman performance.”