My artistic practice is driven by the unease provoked by various political contradictions, and it particularly engages with themes such as failed and dysfunctional systems; the idealisation of how things or social processes are supposed to work; the city as an exaggerated, artificial, excessive, and frenzied space; and the artificial nature of production processes that result in wastefulness and gratuitous excess. My focus lies in reflecting upon the creation of meaning—or the absence thereof—and the development of narratives or fictions that explore these concerns through critical or absurd lenses.
Over recent years, amid the dizzying development of digital technologies, the ideals of individual and collective freedom have been significantly eroded by the consolidation of a global corporate ideology founded upon the control and regulation of individual behaviour. This doctrine is sustained by mass exploitation: through the unrestrained production of goods and the concentration of capital in the hands of an extremely privileged minority. Such dynamics have intensified the exploitation and consequent destruction or pollution of the environment, while simultaneously exacerbating social tensions and distress among vulnerable populations across different regions of the globe—among numerous other grave consequences.
My generation was shaped under the influence of a dominant media structure: television—an apparatus of entertainment, distraction, and manipulation—whose agenda was clearly aligned with the expansion of consumerist thought and the maintenance of a prevailing status quo: Capitalism. Guy Debord, in particular, once highlighted the peculiarities and alienating power of the spectacle; that was fifty-six years ago. The viewer’s temporary dependence on the screen in the privacy of a bedroom has now evolved into a permanent form of enslavement to the screen—one that is carried everywhere, generating new behavioural patterns likewise geared toward consumption and behavioural regulation.
Much has been said about the benefits of access to information and the supposed empowerment of the viewer as content creator. Certainly, there are advantages; but they come at the cost of intensified alienation and the legitimisation and internalisation of a hyper-accelerated capitalist socio-economic system that continues to exploit these very ideals of freedom.
The rapid development of digital technology across scientific fields has undoubtedly led to major discoveries and new insights into how to enhance the human experience. Yet, what remains most evident are the persistent absurdities and contradictions that humanity has dragged along since its origins—chief among them: selfishness, corruption, and hypocrisy. These behaviours are rendered especially visible—and amplified—by the multiplicity of ways in which politics is conducted by governments. A few obvious and oft-cited examples remain consistently unaddressed: the rampant production of disposable goods; the relentless destruction of the environment; the grossly unequal distribution of wealth; widespread poverty; the flagrant waste of food and resources of all kinds; and the lack of awareness regarding the consequences of unchecked demographic growth.
Marco Casado, Mexico City, 2023
