Weird Scenes Inside The Goldmine | James Vaulkhard

Courtesy of James Vaulkhard

Courtesy of James Vaulkhard

“I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

– Percy Bysshe Shelley

We are living through a trans-modern technological era much mooted as unprecedented in both its rapid acceleration and its undreamed of potentialities for our species, and yet, to most of us, it is the product of contrivances in scientific research so utterly impenetrable that its machinations appear, in effect, to be nothing short of magical. The dizzying possibilities of artificial intelligence, guided evolution, genetic coding, cybernetic enhancement, and the vast inter-connective digital tissue that fuels the all-too-often propaganda heavy echo chambers of social media, are a veritable witchery to the vast majority of us. Should we actually be presented with the complexities that underpin their foundations–they would appear to us as obtuse and outlandish as ancient numerical hieroglyphs. 

Courtesy of James Vaulkhard

How many among the estimated 2.7 billion smartphone users in the world, if pressed, would have the faintest idea how to build the ubiquitous connective device that so voraciously devours their daily hours, pumping their dopamine receptors with content that has been algorithmically chosen to fit their psychometric profile, in an incessant rape of attention? Especially, without the on-hand ability to dial-up the necessary instructive information on Google, or perhaps, even more presciently for future generations, it’s Chinese equivalent, Sogou? And what indeed, will remain of our eagerly uploaded art-directed digital realities to Instagram, and the like, should the cloud dissipate like so many million tears in rain, and our intricate and expanding tech-civilisation fall, following suit to so many swept away before? 

It is well documented that when the Romans left Britain around 400AD the civilisation they had built on these shores descended quickly into chaos and decline, the feudal peasantry unequipped with the knowledge or education required to maintain the progressive society that had formed around them. How swiftly would the digital native generation find themselves in a similar state of devolution after some massive technological, nuclear or ecological disruption, and, more importantly, how much less well-equipped would they be to cope with the grit-and-gristle of reality in such circumstances than their forbears of some 2,000 years. Indeed, if we jump a just a few decades hence, what will remain of a resolutely enhanced, digitized and ethereal contemporaneous human history, when the burgeoning era of artificial intelligence itself disappears into the relentless black sea of time?

Courtesy of James Vaulkhard

It is precisely the prospect of a post-artificial intelligence era ‘imprint’ that the Kenya-born London-based interdisciplinary artist James Vaulkhard seeks to explore in the dystopian series Echo Chambers–a collection of algorithm-inspired 'cave-paintings' that pose not only questions about how individuals and beasts might one day be ‘coded’ in an act of guided evolution, but also what traces such enhanced beings might leave behind when the lights go out, and the plug is cataclysmically pulled. In doing so, he presents the viewer with a kind of looped dreamtime, in which our own ‘hauntological’ present coalesces with both a primordial past and potential future, in visceral and gooey abstracted forms, marked by handprints and crude depictions of beasts, intravenously veined in algorithmic code. In these works, he paradoxically asks us to return to prehistoric roots to discover traces of an enhanced human animal from a far distant future, suggesting, not only how utterly alien such traces would likely appear to us, but, in turn, that this may have all happened before–raising uncomfortable questions about our own existence and the endgame of artificial intelligence in a universe, quantum theorists would argue, already contains every possible outcome.

The purpose of these works is to raise such questions, and their resolutely conceptual and abstract nature mark a serious departure for the classically trained artist–in terms not only of source material, but also the peeling away of ‘depiction’ to reveal the raw, subconscious concerns of inner-life. While the paintings are certainly evocative of indecipherable messages from across an abyss of time–not unlike those we have found in the Chauvet Caves–their dark colour palette is in no small way also influenced by the passing of Vaulkhard’s own father in the early part of 2019 (after a protracted battle with cancer)–a death that threw the absurd temporality of existence into sharp relief for the artist, underlining the existential blink of time each of us inhabits in this unrelentingly expanding universe. Thusly, while the magic lantern-esque abstraction in these works speaks to the notion of light dancing in the flickering darkness of a cave lit by fire, and the bleak hope-beyond-hope to communicate contemporaneity to the chimera of some future world, there is also a deeper and vastly celestial element at play. In fact, at the beating heart of Echo Chambers is the notion of the cave as metaphor for the boundless singular mind. This lonely microcosm of the macrocosm an inner space, in which the philosopher travels across the cosmos, reflecting on life, death and what lies beyond, or the shaman masters ritualistic practice. As such, these works constitute a timeless questioning darkness of being that asks us nothing less, than to consider the origin of a human consciousness yet to come–one that appears, in these lost futures, to be somehow technologically enhanced, yet inevitably consigned to the impenetrable landfill of a post-apocalyptic anti-history. The mysterious spectral message they contain in their opaque code, perhaps being only that nothing truly remains. 

The lone and level sands stretch far away…

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Courtesy of James Vaulkhard

Courtesy of James Vaulkhard

What is your favorite medium to work in?

I feel that oil paint is one of the most dynamic mediums. It can be manipulated more than others, in my opinion. For me, the medium and the concept should always be intrinsic to each other–the medium should support narrative, and vice versa but in my opinion the style or technique should be really thought out first, so as to translate the narrative as clearly as possible.

What inspired Echo Chambers–how did the use of algorithms inform the work?

Echo Chambers is a series inspired by Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. Initially, I wanted to explore mythology and rock art, but I also wanted to bring a contemporary angle to the work. Cave paintings, or rock art, are essentially the origins of human consciousness documented upon cave walls, and I think employing them to explore the question of flux in human identity and consciousness in today’s society is fascinating. There is so much that is being disrupted by algorithms in marketing, science, politics... It can’t help but make you think about speculative futures. 

Courtesy of James Vaulkhard

Do you think we are on the brink of guided evolution?

Perhaps. I mean, what will A.I do to our consciousness if it takes away all the chance and coincidence–where does the evolutionary journey take us if we can’t experience tests, trials and temptations? I found the cave painting complemented these notions conceptually. The tryptic thumbprint painting, for example, which was the centre-piece for the exhibition is my favourite. It’s a reference to the hand-prints found in prehistoric cave art and I think translates most accurately these notions of human identity being influenced by A.I. There’s a double-edge to it–the mind in the cave, and the cosmos as an analogy for the mind. It’s an exploration of Plato's analogy of the cave, if you will.

What would you say are your chief concerns as an artist?

I’ve been very lucky to have lived between two amazing countries–Kenya and Britain. When I decided to pursue art as a career, I was painting quite traditional portraits and landscapes, which were inspired by the dramatic African landscape, but it was in Florence that I honed my skills. That was a formative period of my life, and since then I have taken my classical training and continue to explore possibilities it lends itself to as a base. There is quite a dystopian theme to the work I am currently making. I’ve had a tough few years processing family bereavements, and the isolation of being the ‘tortured’ artist has pushed me to want to work and collaborate with other creative people rather than go it alone. Who knows where this will take me–there is so much amazing stuff going on. The internet and tech world has allowed so many different disciplines to be interwoven. There’s some incredible studios working in 3D-printing, virtual reality, drone technology and robotics. These are not technologies I’ve worked in but I’d certainly love to get involved if the opportunity presented itself. 

Courtesy of James Vaulkhard