TOTEM by Mathroom

Totem - a natural object or animal that is believed by a particular society to have spiritual significance and that is adopted by it as an emblem.The year is 2025, and we are rapidly advancing into a brave, exciting, and disturbing new world of technology and lifestyle, not dissimilar to depictions from 80s science fiction.
In this process, an ongoing practice of research, discussion and sense-making is required from humanity - far easier said than done. The differences and similarities between generations are often polarized by technology, acknowledged and unpacked as complexities unfold - both in order to create awareness and connectedness - and perhaps the opposite energy of separatism through classification and steadfast belief systems, religious and otherwise.
TOTEM engages this space, immersing the viewer in a forensic paradigm of allegory and dreamlike presentations of various totems, from inner and outer worlds, harking on the evolution of technology, and the worship thereof. From stone age tools to tamagotchis, axes to AK-47s, spoken word to visor headsets - as a species we have mutated and advanced - and also arguably regressed in our sensibilities relating to the body, to speed and time, and to our relationship the planet.
TOTEM questions; are our bodies in fact the supercomputers we are so excited about creating? What effect does technology immersion have on our minds and bodies - does it merge or alienate or both? What is reality, now? Is there an objective baseline - or is it all subjective and open to interpretation? Where is our mind? Where is our heart? What are our intentions? Where are we going so fast and why? To what degree is fear of death a core driver?
A central theme in TOTEM is engaging with the concept of death and rebirth - and the big mystery that follows. Mortality appears to be at the of the core of rapidly developing technology. Futurist projections of immortality and cyborg powers entrance some and repulse others. Yet we remain part of a biosphere; an ancient onion of time, evolution, biology, and tactile reality; rocks and gas and flesh and feathers. It is both beautiful and dangerous. A life-giver and a life-taker. Technology has always served to buffer the pain of being terrestrial. Fire keeps us warm, weapons keep us safe, tools help us create, art helps us grow and imagine. What then, and where to from here?
With technology oligarchs claiming gross wealth and power, more than governments, much of it beyond legislation and regulation - are we the lab rats in a story that is not our own - or are we willing participants in the visions of the elite, and at what cost? It is fascinating to observe the totems that are used by big tech companies - the apple with a bite out of it alluding to knowledge from Eden - Amazon with its kindles responsible for burning massive amounts of fossil fuel, spurring deforestation of the actual Amazon rainforest. There are countless examples in plain sight, that tell their own stories.
TOTEM asks - what do you, the individual, and we the collective - value, and why? Do we oscillate on the get-rich-fast frequency, harvesting an expanding a multitude of new-age coins, living in a screen more than the world, indulging in sarcastic apathy and filtered masks in answer to reality. Do we question the cost of this trajectory; how much energy needs to be extracted from the earth to indulge these developments. If they are inevitable, what are the core drivers - greed and speed, or sustainability and adaptability? In a world of kaleidoscopic cultural and spiritual dissonances and harmonies, robots and brain chips, ancient knowledges and practices of inner space, and technology induced sclerosis - the flood gates are open. What are your totems? What do you value? Are we going to outsource it all to AI? How will we choose to be with our time on Earth.
The DOOM “prophecy” from the now legendary DOS game (created by John Carmack who interestingly also co-created Oculus VR headsets, Armadillo Aerospace rocket company, and is now pursuing his own AI endeavor) - depicts humanity fighting for survival on Mars after opening the gates of hell. We are arguably closer to this far-fetched fiction than we were when DOOM was created. The line between games and reality, rebirth and fatality, science and story-telling - remain simultaneously bizarrely distinct and blurred.
TOTEMs video and music was manually stitched - edited and animated with stills, samples, instruments, gifs and video clips, both from the artist's own creative archive, and sourced from the internet of things. No AI was used.

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