Digital Oil Spill

Three of the paintings at the UAG Deep Water Horizon solo exhibition

The Deep Water Horizon event at UCSD is a solo exhibition taking place in the University Art Gallery, in between Muir and Revelle college. The artist, Hans Weigand, creates art through the juxtaposition of various images on a backdrop and then going over the entire thing with paint. He also includes cryptic prints and partial prints of letters on separate canvases attached to the back of each painting. So far, no one knows what they mean besides Weigand. I challenge you to try and figure them out.

Weigand’s work brings forth an important question in the advent of the modern, digital era. The biological and technological evolution of Homo sapiens sapiens has reached a point where we are questioning our own progress. We wonder whether or not we are on the right course, and there are many among us that truly believe we are not. For if we were, for example, congress would not be constantly debating new laws; they would simply say, “stay the course,” and sit back. We are, in a sense, questioning our own evolution, and by extension, our survivability generated by our technology.

Weigand's exhibition, named “Deep Water Horizon,” does not refer to the BP Oil Spill that we are all familiar with. It refers to the “data tsunami” that has come upon us in the modern era, the flood of new technology, new information, and new problems. Our very progress, such as wireless data transmission and modern weaponry, decreases the survivability of others of our species. Prior to contemporary times, Cyber Stalking was not an issue and nor was hacking or identity theft. The issues of our past such as medical inadequacy or self-propagating irrational beliefs have been largely reduced in magnitude. Physical, external, causes of death have been dealt with. Now however, things like long distance relationships or Cyber Bullying or Identity Theft make us kill ourselves. Have we simply traded one evil for another? The technology even changes us. Our brains are rewired, new illnesses arise that weren’t even major problems before, like nearsightedness or Deep Vein Thrombosis.

So the question arises, are we on the right course? And if we are, are we proceeding along the path correctly?
~Neri Wong

More information: http://universityartgallery.ucsd.edu/exhibitions/hanswiegand.shtml