Mimi Onuoha
The Cloth In The Cable, 2023
Mixed-media installation
80 feet of cables, spices, earth, braided hair
Copyright The Artist
In a dreamlike installation that draws on traditional Igbo cosmology, data cables (the veins through which digital information travels) are laced with culturally significant materials like spices, cloth, and soil...
In a dreamlike installation that draws on traditional Igbo cosmology, data cables (the veins through which digital information travels) are laced with culturally significant materials like spices, cloth, and soil that are intended to infuse them with new values. In the face of what Ọnụọha describes as “algorithmic violence” — the devastating impact on and exclusion of whole ‘categories’ of people inflicted by the calculations of automated decision-making systems — she conjures a whole new mythology to better govern the creation and maintenance of the technical infrastructure that connects the world. This installation is a gesture towards infusing modern technical systems with values and ontologies from past and different cultures, regions, people. It's currently on exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum alongside These Networks In Our Skin.
