James Wylie

Refresh (but none of us know what a city is) (2018)

1 min 14 sec (excerpt) of 3 min 35 secSingle channel / Digital Video / Colour / Sound

Refresh (but none of us know what a city is) shows a digitally animated forest. The trees stand around the edge of a swampy clearing where the water is rising. The scene is overlaid with multiple screen-like squares that show gushing water, fingers scrolling on a track pad, and a watery underground passage. A command line interface appears and the words "fix me" then "fixme" are typed in yellow. The forest scene reappears but now the water is half way up the trees, and rising.

The sound of chirping birds begins serenely, but becomes glitchy, repetitive, and digitally distorted.

"Refresh (but none of us know what a city is) asks the viewer to consider our place in ecology as we move toward the digital. As the Anthropocene acknowledges the mistakes of our past, we must embrace care in order not to repeat them, to not to get carried away in the expedited storm of progress. This artwork portrays a world much like ours; attempting to be natural, yet drowning in digital debris."

Artist's statement

Other works by James Wylie

CIRCUIT is the
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