Critical Reflection -
CRITICAL REFLECTION: ON LIGHT AND DARKNESS, SEARCHING FOR WAYS OUT OF NORMALCY
The Rider, digital sculpture.
“For the sublime has no object either. When the starry sky, a vista of open seas or a stained glass window shedding purple beams fascinate me, there is a cluster of meaning, of colors, of words, of caresses, there are light touches, scents, sighs, cadences that arise, shroud me, carry me away, and sweep me beyond the things that I see, hear, or think.
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the sublime is a something added that expands us, overstrains us, and causes us to be both here, as dejects, and there, as others and sparkling. A divergence, an impossible bounding. Everything missed, joy- fascination.”
Julia Kristeva, (1982), Approaching Abjection, Powers of Horror, Columbia University Press, NY, pp: 1 – 31.
My work has always been shaped by the tension between beauty and terror—the sublime. As an Icelander and a Jew, I’ve lived between worlds: the stark, mythic landscapes of Iceland and the vast, open plains of Illinois. This duality has deeply influenced my practice, driving me to explore themes of displacement, transformation, and the uncanny.
For me, the sublime is not just an aesthetic ideal but a lens through which to examine identity, destruction, and rebirth. In an age of fractured realities and accelerating technological change, how do we navigate the interplay of awe and unease? How do we reclaim meaning in a world that often feels both luminous and obscured?
In this essay, I reflect on my artistic and design practice, drawing inspiration from thinkers and creators who grapple with the unilluminated edges of contemporary fear. Their work guides me as I seek to interrogate—and perhaps reconcile—the contradictions that define our human condition.
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Julia K
The mediums in which I use are interlinked with weapons of mass destruction, it is strange to know that these technologies would not exist without military simulation research, an unavoidable area of conflict and ethics for the computational artist.
“The efforts of military institutions to get humans out of the loop have been a major influence in the development of computer technology. The birth of autonomous weapons systems, of war games played by automata, of production systems that pace and discipline the worker, all are manifestations of this military drive.”
De Landa, Manuel. War in the Age of Intelligent Machines. New York: Zone Books, 1991, p. 177.
Unlike ‘military art’ this form of artistic media does not revolve around depicting war, but dances around it. Its history is infused with it though the history remains veiled to the common consumer and artist utilizing the tools despite its violent origins. Acknowledging the complex birth of the media I use has got me to approach it with a different perspective. It is the only art form whose history is intrinsically linked to centuries of geopolitical violence on a grand scale which has further allowed the age of virtual wars to take place. We specifically witness these virtual wars happening on destructive scales in Palestine. We have evolved out of the age of total wars.
“In virtual war, citizens are not only divested of their power to give consent. They are also demobilized. We now wage wars and few notice or care. War no longer demands the type of physical involvement or moral attention it required over the past two centuries.” Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond. London: Vintage 2001, 2000, p. 188.
The medium itself would not exist without the other, thus exploring and repurposing new ways to use these technologies becomes vital. It is one way to search for light in the darkness of the world.
My practice is an interplay between the light and darkness, flesh and machine, worldbuilding through image and sound, non-linear narratives and critical questions of humanist perspectives. A portal to alternatives.
I had seen the influence the work by H.R Giger had through various plethora of media from the 70’s to early mid 2000’s. Video games to film, being exposed to dark themes from a early age The works of Giger have massively influenced how I myself approach experience:
SEARCHING FOR THE LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS OF THE WORLD, Adam Hnojil wrote for the book Metamorphoses, accurately describing Gigers unusual ways of exploring dark and taboo themes.