Artist: Ian Haig
"Devolution, mutation and montrosity. These are the conspicuous and at times outrageous preoccupations of Ian Haig, whose work satirises our apparent desire to become one with our machines. Questions to do with what it means to be human, what is natural and what is not in relation to technology are the centre of Haig's practice. For Haig the utopian mystique associated with computers is an illusion that disguises a post-human nightmare of devolution. Haig's bizarre and hysterical work is the closest thing we have in Australia media arts to a theatre of the absurd, in which fundamental issues of human nature are exaggerated and deformed for clarity of inspection."
"The Excelsior 3000: Super Interactive Toilets (2001) is the pinnacle of bowel technology, a 'new, modified, interactive toilet' to assist in the proper functioning of our changing bodies. Computers have made us more sedentary, which is not good for the digestion. The Excelsior 3000 responds to this predicament by converging the humble WC with custom-built, high-end media stations. Hydraulic seats ease the user into position and interactive LCD video screens allow them to choose from a menu of soothing video sequences depicting naturalistic and suggestive scenes. These scenes, combined with enticing surround-sound sequences of contracting and expanding textures, have been designed to aid and stimulate bowel movement. Haig's super-interactive toilets are the latest domestic appliance to accommodate what we are becoming in the technological reinvention of nature."
Part of a chapter from: Interzone, Media Arts In Australia, Chp5: Artificial Nature
I feel that Ian Haig, has done exactly as the article title imply's that is creating an artificial nature. An extreme reality, that could possibly be our future, unlikely but still possible. Haig makes use of contemporary new age technologies, to create a parody on societal consumption and rapid advancement.
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