Karen Harkema South African, b. 1969
format historically used for religious altarpieces, which here elevates the technological subject matter to a
sacred status. The diptych presents a stark dialectic: the left panel represents the unmade machine, while
the right panel represents the emergent organic form.
The left panel is a dark, textured field. A necro-technological landscape populated by the detritus of the
digital age.
These elements are stripped of their function and arranged like specimens in an archive or
bones in a reliquary. The darkness of the background suggests the void of the black box, the opaque nature
of AI technology that we use but do not understand.
In contrast, the right panel features a vibrant, painted surface where generative, grid-like marks have
evolved into an organic, cellular network. This side represents the biological potential, the messiness of life
that defies binary categorization. The paint is layered, scraped, and reworked, mimicking the evolutionary
process of mutation and adaptation.