As I research animism/boundaries/indigenous perspectives on AI/migration-related ideas, I decided to revisit seeds from two previous projects to write the dream review. Since there was positive feedback for both Hole Society and Cyborgian Rock, I envisioned a “perfect” version of each developed further into the thesis.

Holes for Sale and Cyborgian Rock 2.0 

Enormous rocks, displaced from nature with apparent ease, have long been a staple of masculine art. This includes everything from Jimmie Durham’s gawking boulders plonked atop crushed sedans to Michael Heizer’s spectacle of logistics, Levitated Mass, and his land art cohort. 

This promethean posturing is given a thorough ribbing in the new installation by Maria Maciak next to the 7-11 in downtown Heidelbontown. At first blush, Maciak’s Cyborgian Rock 2.0 seems to match the strong men’s bet by miraculously placing a 200-ton boulder amidst the bustle of city life, instilling a sense of grudging awe and knee-jerk curiosity. Closer inspection reveals an undermining of such muscular impulses. 

One plane of the rock is inset by a primitive computer interface, above which sit two dim green bulbs. The impression is that of some early, gargantuan prototype of the Tamagotchi giddily staring out at the spectator. The monochrome CRT monitor presents a curt explanation for the setup: technology now allows us to communicate with non-living entities; use the keypad to converse with the rock. 

With that prompt, visitors can initiate conversations with a complex A.I. that plays the role of this ancient fragment of the earth. The interactions, with calls tapped out on the durable keys and responses blinking in green, pixelated fonts on the monitor, run from the delightful to the mystic, the geologic to the spiritual.  Spend enough time chatting with the rock, one walks away with an altered sense of the borders between the human and the unhuman. 

Maciak also unveiled the Holes for Sale mapping project which presents an ever replenishing topography of holes, complete with descriptions and media documentations of said holes. The holes themselves range from feral to man-made varieties, sinkholes to custom dug holes. One is encouraged to visit and/or buy a hole. Sales are conducted via NFT (non-fungible-tokens) technology subverting the notion of ownership in the digital era.

Like Cyborgian Rock, Holes for Sale interrogates basic premises of modern culture, specifically the ontological parasites (things which can only exist as an absence of another thing) that impose limitations on consciousness. Here, the negative space that defines a hole is given specific market value, not the land in which these cavities exist. Just as intangible works of digital art, which by their nature are non-existent in the material sense, are tethered to outmoded notions of art objects as commodities, the lacunas mapped and sold in Holes for Sale exist only in the warp and woof of packet switching computer networks.

Since most holes exist to be filled, several conventions are listed to indicate the relative impermanence of each hole. The user is unable to avoid recalling the pillaging of the soil through extraction, remediation, and over-farming. It is also difficult not to think of the fundamental ugliness of the commodification of women’s bodies. With a playful sense of irony and humor, Holes for Sale cannily cast shame upon the corrosive core of free-market enterprise.