The Owls, The Black Chamber and The Twin Pillars (2020)
“Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness but instead expose them” Ephesians 5:11
In many ways the conspiracy theory has replaced religion in offering simple answers to an ever more complicated world. Offering an alternate reality, revealing secret symbolism hidden in plain sight and satisfying a quest deep within to the know the unknowable.
Using the device of an imaginary conspiracy theory about the fabled secret cabal of world leaders, the work hopes to create dialogue about the surveillance state, history, truth and the nature of belief.
The Black Chamber was the earliest incarnation of the NSA, and like the owl, a super predator, unseen but all-seeing, imbued with near magical powers
Inspired by Jan Van Eyck’s “Last Judgement”. In Van Eyck’s time, judgement was saved for God. Today, memories, once known only by you and your creator are now recorded and stored in underground data banks.
Devised and built while fighting Stage IV cancer, given just months to live, the spectre of judgement weighing heavily upon me. The work is comment on the seductive nature of all belief systems and how the line between fact and fiction can blur.
