ECHO

Echo explores the role of belief and trust in relation to technology, and how it mediates our perception of the world. The work brings together real and performed images; still and moving; made through journeys set by an automated random coordinate generator, to reflect on the ambiguity of vision and the embedded and complex role of images in the experience of our increasingly hybridised world.

Photographs from my own journeys merge from clips recycled from TikTok in a hybrid in- stallation of the work. The fragments are taken from user Randonautica* videos; a platform which asks users to set an “intention” whilst the app generates random coordinates to give them a destination to “adventure to”. Claiming to help users enhance their spirituality, experience mind-matter interaction phenomena, find enchantment in the world around them; it utilises probability to co-opt meaning.

Playing with the parameters of chance and control, autonomy and automation, I am seeking to merge the absurdities that come from blind faith in apps and technology with the human desire to trust and find meaning.

*Young people film their ‘randonauting’ adventures – sometimes following the app over their own judgement – and when teenagers filmed themselves finding a suitcase with human remains in – this became a viral trend – young people exploring the peripheries of their localities looking for ways to be shocked or spooked or charmed – looking for an experience and looking to correlate expectations with what they find. It lead also to many performed or faked videos in order to become more popular.