Model C: Marrow Codex, 2023, 3D printed sculpture with embedded media display and LCD display with dynamic video loop, 20 x 39 x 26 cm
Plinth acrylic and aluminium and gravel
As a form of biological encryption, the Marrow Codex existed as a device to encode data into the genetic sequencing of DNA with cloned bone marrow. A curious feature of the device was that the only way to decrypt it was to destroy it, thus the information existed only within the closed system of the codex itself. Was the information within forbidden to the outside world? What could have been so virulent that ,like the infamous Black Books hidden in the Vatican, had to be hermetically sealed from the outside world? Observing the similarities in our anatomy with the Codex itself, one can suppose that vestiges of this occulted information still remains in our bodies, an informational virus, too valuable to destroy, but too taboo to be apprehended.
'Relics of the Cyborg Theocracy'
The world that Model C proposes expands on our concerns with privacy, encryption, and how that relates to the formation of secret theologies. By imagining a world in which encryption is the central principle of a major religion, it asks questions about the value of data which is occulted, made inaccessible, and rarified. In the contemporary conversation surrounding AI training and algorithmic targeting , does removing ourselves from the collective corpus create a new culture in which, unlike the famous adage, information wants to be bound?
Photography by Jonathan Tan
