Incorrect Deities – From the series “Uncertain Myths: Confused Visions for Hyper-tech Times”

The enduring relevance of classical mythology lies in its ability to speak to universal themes and experiences: stories and characters timeless in their appeal, capturing the complexities and contradictions of the human experience in a way that is both immediate and profound. Whether exploring themes of love, loss, power, or transformation, classical myths offer a rich and varied tapestry of ideas and images.

These complicated narratives feel often shockingly unacceptable to our contemporary sensibilities – women are objectified and commodified; violence is retorted to as the default conflict resolution method; slavery, incest, abuse and violence are daily occurrences nobody seems to bat an eye at…

And then, what happens to those heroes and deities of the past when they get finally forgotten, their inconvenient stories misunderstood or erased from our collective imagination, their iconology no longer legible – or worse, their visual tropes and profound meanings cheaply distorted into less sophisticated narratives for a society unable or unwilling to invest on historic perspective, complexity and nuance? What do we lose and what do we gain from this erasure, and how do we now absorb those mythologies into our own (maybe better) ones in a way that helps us navigate our present conflicts?

These works, originated by human-led AI-mediated dialogue, with imagery then manually reworked, digitally manipulated by hand, and printed on large-scale canvas, aim to offer a fresh perspective on the role of myths today. At the heart of these pieces is a recognition that our world has become fractured by tech and that the traditional frameworks of morality, religion, society and culture are no longer sufficient to navigate our increasingly complex, hyper-connected existence.

 


Image from the series “Uncertain Myths: Confused Visions for Hyper-tech Times” By Miguel Ripoll. 140 x 140 cms. – 2023-24. Human-led, AI-mediated dialogue mixed with hand-crafted digital media, manually reworked, edited, and giclée printed on Hahnemühle Canvas 340 g/m2. See more at https://miguelripoll.art


Image from the series “Uncertain Myths: Confused Visions for Hyper-tech Times” By Miguel Ripoll. 140 x 140 cms. – 2023-24. Human-led, AI-mediated dialogue mixed with hand-crafted digital media, manually reworked, edited, and giclée printed on Hahnemühle Canvas 340 g/m2. See more at https://miguelripoll.art


Image from the series “Uncertain Myths: Confused Visions for Hyper-tech Times” By Miguel Ripoll. 140 x 140 cms. – 2023-24. Human-led, AI-mediated dialogue mixed with hand-crafted digital media, manually reworked, edited, and giclée printed on Hahnemühle Canvas 340 g/m2. See more at https://miguelripoll.art


Image from the series “Uncertain Myths: Confused Visions for Hyper-tech Times” By Miguel Ripoll. 140 x 140 cms. – 2023-24. Human-led, AI-mediated dialogue mixed with hand-crafted digital media, manually reworked, edited, and giclée printed on Hahnemühle Canvas 340 g/m2. See more at https://miguelripoll.art