‘Irish Steps’

Irish Steps is a papier mache vessel that Elizabeth created in 2023 after reading an article about Artificial Intelligence and how AI has the potential to fundamentally change the future of humankind. For millennia, human language has been the pathway for the creation of societies by disseminating thoughts, ideas and forming cultures and religions. As AI continues to learn how we use language, it shapes and affects how we move forward as a species.  

From the days of early man, language combined with movement across the globe, has created the humankind of today. The unconceivable future that Al will bring about propelled the maker to record the simple human act of walking, of putting one foot in front of another.  The illustrations and words portrayed on the pot Irish Steps were taken from a month long walk she made across Ireland in 2014. The walk itself was motivated by a desire to explore her land and the world in a very basic way that harked back to our early nomadic ancestors. The individual words inscribed on the pot ripen with meaning as consciously or not the viewer starts to connect them with other words or ideas. The drawings inside the pot remind us of a few of the unseen connected pathways; neural, blood, sound waves, airwaves that are part of being a living being.  Pathways, both literal and abstract, connect us and everything we do and for better or worse lead to the expansion of both human and AI knowledge.

Material: Papier mache, ink pen drawing; dimensions: Height 58 cm x Width 35 cm