The Story of Intelligent Evolution

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This project aims to investigate how the human ability to invent has completely revolutionized the way we - for better or for worse - interact with this planet. I hypothesize that since the discovery of agriculture some 12,000 or so years ago humans have directed their own ‘evolution’ by inventing tools and technologies to solve their problems rather than trying to adapt to changes in their environment. However, while this has meant incredible advancements in what we can now achieve with a click of a button or a push of a paddle, the long-term effect of such advancements might be that we are designing a world that may one day not be suitable for us to live in.   

While my thesis suggests other factors, the major claims made in it about where we may be headed as specie are predominantly based on the futurist theory of technological singularity, which dictates that the ever-accelerating progress of technology will result in us reaching an essential singularity beyond which human affairs, as we know them, will not be able to continue.    

The idea is depicted through a panoramic illustration of some major human inventions placed inside a room that has been built to fool the viewer’s visual cues controlling perception of perspective and relative sizes. This illusion plays on parts of the human brain that have – partially due to our predominantly cubical architecture - been programmed to being fooled by such distortions. The converging roof and floor inside the room also help convey the idea of us reducing our own physical spaces and moving towards some sort of a singularity, similar to the one alluded to in the theory of technological singularity. The details on the illustration itself convey some of the more negative implications of our inventions, which are only visible when we really scrutinize the impact they are having.