I'm a British multi-disciplinary designer and artist. In my work I explore the digitalization of everyday life through the use of digital tools, found media, critical theory and historical studies. My work involves looking closely at how life is rendered in digital environments, such as depictions of nature on screen, mass group communication and the precise methods of synchronizing clocks around the world. The films, installations, websites and writing that I create are often assembled by a set of parameters that stem from the body of research I am giving form too. My visual work as been exhibited at Impakt Festival (Utrecht), Bureau Europa (Maastricht) and Fiber Festival (Amsterdam). I have a BA in Graphic Design from Falmouth University, UK and an MA in Non Linear Narrative from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague.
Mushroom Radio - In 2018, Jack Bardwell and myself set up Mushroom Radio at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. Together we built a platform that would be used to amplify students extra-curricular activities as well as acting as a tool for students to use within their work. The radio ran weekly and included music shows, talk shows and broadcasted discussion about topics such as diversity, climate justice and the everyday life of students at the academy. In 2020, the school asked us if we would host a radio show during the graduation show. We took this opportunity to hand the radio over to current students who are now carry out the broadcast and making sure that students are still given a voice in the academy.
Targets - In 2018 the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke and the phenomenon of political microtargeting was pushed into the publics eye. I wanted to know what it was, how it works and whether it really works. To learn more about it I spoke to computer scientists, political theorists and internet researchers. The video features excerpts from the conversations we had and exposes the unknowns and contradictory ideas surrounding microtargeting. The conversations are overlaid over footage of the sea between the UK and the EU, footage from the investigations carried out by the British government and images created by a microtargeting advert generator that I programmed myself. The film was premiered at Impakt Festival in 2018.
No Home Like Place - No Home Like Place is a website that examines the monotony of Airbnb listings across the world. The project was created in 2018 during a workshop with Jonathan Puckey. During a time when Airbnb is becoming ubiquitous around the world as well as problematic in cities where residents can no longer find homes to live in due to the amount of Airbnb listings. The website uses hundreds of airbnb listing images that have been scraped from their website and feeds them through an object recognition technology. The objects are then cut from each image and pasted onto another image on the website. A visitor to the website can browse the listings by clicking items in the image which will bring them to the listing that featured that particular object. The website can be found at this link: https://nonlinearnarrative.github.io/no-home-like-place/
Unopened Space - This short film was created as part of a project that investigated Predictive Policing in the Netherlands in 2018. The video tried to replicate the process of creating predictions that CAS (Criminaliteits Anticipatie Systeem) created when it was fed data from the police. The system is created from an artificial intelligence that is fed data such as past criminal activity, weather predictions and housing prices. The AI then produces hotspots within the city where it predicts a crime will appear. This system is flawed in many respects and can cause great harm to many of cities most vulnerable residents.
This film documents the steps of creating an artificial intelligence using public data scraped from Den Haag's police website and then using it to create an AI that see's the entire city as a potential criminal location. The result is a contorted, dystopian view of the city that bares some similarity to the city but without feeling as though it's a real space. The film was presented at a symposium called Violent Patterns in which the police, academics and artists were brought together to discuss the algorithmic control of public space.
The Quick Shall Inherit the Earth - This video installation was developed as part of my MA graduation project. It focused on the dictation of time through technological means. The 4-channel video displayed a film that told the tale of four different characters who were instrumental in the development of synchronised time across the globe. It featured the sailor, who wished to synchronise time in order to travel across oceans, the merchant who wanted to increase the speed of this travel in order to trade, the engineer who developed ever more precise methods of time keeping and the romantic who attempted to escape the speed of technology by rejecting it all together.
The project was created from a year of research into how time keeping is conducted and synchronised. In this research I discovered the 'nuclear clocks' that are current tasked with keeping the time of the Netherlands in Deflt as well as historical methods of time keeping created in the 19th century in England. I also conducted research into the networks of undersea cables, satellites and other technological infrastructure that allows the world to keep on time.
E-ROB - E-ROB (Experimental Rehab for Online Buyers) was a project created as part of Extra Practice in 2019. It was featured at Dutch Design Week as part of the What if..Lab: Safety Matters programme. E-ROB was an performative, experimental rehab in which we would attempt to understand the public of Dutch Design Weeks online shopping habits. We did this in collaboration with Gementee Haarlem and the Dutch Police in order to find new strategies to deal with online shopping fraud. We created a series of interactive installations that asked the public to question their buying habits. This included a vending machine in which the public could try to defraud one another and a behind-the-screen hypnosis where the visitor would place their head inside a computer and be hypnotised using online advertising aesthetics. Whilst the public interacted with the installations the Extra Practice team, dressed as doctors, would take notes and interview the participants to gather real shopping habits and experiences of being defrauded.
All These Open Windows but No Fresh Air - 'In All These Open Windows but No Fresh Air, Benjamin Earl explores the use of wilderness as a surface to manmade objects. Using Bliss as a backdrop, the photograph of a Californian Hill taken in 1996 by Charles O'Rear Earl investigates the relationship between the screen and the non-human environment. The image was sold to Microsoft for what is reported to be one of the highest amounts paid for a stock photo. The photo became the default wallpaper for one of Microsofts operating systems, Windows XP and has been sold over 500 million times.
Today we look to our screens to get in touch with nature more than ever. From desktop backgrounds and virtual hikes to nature documentaries and therapeutic VR experiences. Whilst historically, wilderness was often feared and avoided, today the non-human environment is seen to be an antidote to humankind's urban-industrial complex. By looking into the historical depiction of nature beginning with Microsoft's Windows XP default background to stories of wilderness in the bible, this short film explores the cultural values we attach to non-human environments and why it is used as decoration to technology.'
