01 / Vestige of the Decline I / 2023 / nickel plated copper, hand carved stone / 4.5” x 3.25” x 1.5”
02 / Vestige of the Decline II / 2023 / nickel plated copper, cast bronze, hand carved stone / 5” x 4” x 2.75”
03 / Vestige of the Decline III / 2023 / nickel plated copper, hand carved stone / 5.25” x 3” x 5”
04 / Vestige of the Decline IV / 2022 / nickel and silver plated copper / 7” x 3.5” x 2.75”
05 / Vestige of the Decline V / 2024 / silver plated cast bronze and copper / 7.5” x 2” x 1.75”
06 / Vestige of the Decline VI / 2024 / nickel and brass plated copper / 9” x 2.5” x 3.5”
07 / Vestige of the Decline VII / 2024 / silver plated cast bronze and copper / 13.5” x 3” x 1”
Vestiges of the Decline I-VII
2023-24
A sentient machine or object is one that has attained consciousness - a sense of self. Collective anxieties and cautionary tales surrounding this idea recur across time, from childhood stories like Pinocchio and The Velveteen Rabbit to contemporary narratives of artificial intelligence. In each, the notion of what it means to be “human” is tested, as the constructed or artificial “other” inches ever closer to our own image.
Yet an overlooked truth within these stories is that to become human is also to become breakable - subjected to pain, decay, and death. Why would Pinocchio wish for a body of flesh, one capable of breaking bones and growing tumors? Perhaps the desire to be human is, at its core, a longing for destruction or a yearning to feel the limits of one’s own impermanence.
In the remains of these transformations - splintered limbs, unraveling seams, obsolete circuitry - lie the vestiges of evolution. Each iteration, whether of flesh or machine, bears traces of what came before as ghost limbs of purpose and relics of adaptation. Evolution does not advance cleanly; it accumulates, corrodes, and glitches on itself. What we call progress often leaves behind the debris of its own undoing.
To evolve, then, is also to risk de-evolution. As the artificial aspires to the organic and the human seeks perfection through technology, both edge toward a paradoxical collapse. Within these fragments, the line between creation and decay, between progress and ruin, becomes indistinguishable.