‘Homo “Bozo” Sapiens Problemo’ is a series of digitally animated GIFs, displayed on large LCD screens, partially concealed by prison-cell window frames. The project explores the idea of our limited capacity to understand the world around us — as creatures born with sense organs geared towards survival, we grasp at making sense of the complex, chaotic reality we inhabit.
Large swathes of this work are absorbed by darkness and concealed by metal bars — poetically alluding to the gaps in our species ability to understand reality. This is an idea which extends from Plato’s famous cave shadow allegory (500+ BCE) to avant-garde theories proposed by Cognitive Psychologist Dr Donald Hoffman, all of which highlight the inadequacy of human perception. We are, in essence, trapped.
‘Homo “Bozo” Sapiens Problemo’ utilises the monotony inherent in the GIF format as a means of channelling the looping, unresolved nature of these ideas. The animated GIF portion of the work further speaks to the shared human condition — being based around ‘shooting stars’ falling through the night sky. My African ancestors spoke of these stars as omens and signs of imbalance and foreboding within our physical life on earth.
It is my conjecture as an artist, that we can only ever begin to resolve the plethora of issues presenting us as a species, once we understand and accept the biases and unresolved design ‘flaws’ which evolution has endowed us with. We peer through a narrow perceptual window at reality.
