A. Eye of the Beholder

Are we really seeing what we “see”? Are we even seeing what “we” want to see? This piece has two parts: one digital, and the other physical. The digital NFT piece is based on my line drawings that I’ve been using in all of my graffiti wall murals for decades. Spirit Snacks dance in front of a rotating, hypnotic scene. The physical piece is a security camera dome that has been infused with the same floating Spirit Snacks, in AR form. Little do we know that we are physically, manually, willingly feeding Artificial Intelligence our data by interacting with the security camera hidden behind the mirrored dome. We are constantly being watched, by surveillance cameras all around us, and more metaphorically through the all seeing eye in the sky. Does that make us feel safe? Or should we start panicking that AI, the technological tool we thought we can control, might start to have a consciousness, and we are the ones being manipulated? We are training AI to better guide us, but what if it’s AI demanding us to feed it more information so it can study us and project a view that we want to see, so we don’t recognize how we are losing control? Is self-cognitive distortion or pareidolia our downfall? Purchase of the NFT comes with the physical piece.