Josh Tiessen
Rehs Contemporary Galleries, Inc., New York City

One Christmas I purchased a virtual reality headset and entered the Metaverse as an experiment. I watched VR films, played games, painted in three dimensions, interacted with human avatars in social worlds, and even attended a VR church service. However, my foray was short-lived as I experienced intense motion sickness, even leading me to toss my not-so-virtual cookies!

As a society we must grapple with our virtual ecospheres, whether that be the addictive social networks we frequent, augmented reality, or the all-immersive Metaverse. Pandora’s box has been opened and hyperreality is shaping most of us whether we like it or not.

I began thinking more seriously about virtual reality after listening to Father John Misty’s song, Total Entertainment Forever,


“Bedding Taylor Swift every night inside the Oculus Rift
After mister and missus finish dinner and the dishes
…
No, can you believe how far we've come?
In the new age
Freedom to have what you want
In the new age we'll all be entertained
Rich or poor, the channels are all the same
You're a star now, baby, so dry your tears
You're just like them
Wake on up from the nightmare
…
When the historians find us we'll be in our homes
Plugged into our hubs
Skin and bones
A frozen smile on every face
As the stories replay
This must have been a wonderful place”


Likewise, in the words of Neil Postman, will we be “amused to death” via the mountain of infinite content? My painting raises similar probing questions. The composition radiates from the 5G cell tower, representing a modern Tree of Knowledge. Like the Buddha who sat cross-legged beneath the Bodhi tree of enlightenment, Qohelet levitates under the ‘tree’ that promises omniscience. The hope of becoming trans-human turns on us as the technology that promised freedom becomes an instrument of mass surveillance, an inevitable panopticon of power.

The abandoned cityscape in my painting is reminiscent of a popular apocalyptic motif in video games and film. As our world accelerates toward urbanization and the obliteration of the natural world, will we desire to escape to a virtual world? While Qohelet sits mesmerized, the encircling turkey vultures and famished Black Jaguar serve as the only signs of life. Is this the kind of dystopian existence we want? Perhaps the animals will jolt Qohelet back to the real world he was called to inhabit and steward. I am not a curmudgeon when it comes to technology, but as Dr. Carl Trueman asserted, “Technology… defines ontology.” [i] It can dictate the nature of existence. If we are not careful, virtual reality will become our true reality, the only world we care to live in.

Josh Tiessen
Artist

[i] Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. 331.