I can recall some of my earliest memories as being associated with certain technologies. At the age of five, my siblings and I became the elated new owners of a Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The distant worlds that this device allowed me to partake in were altogether unfathomable before this point. Although I had never previously interacted with such a piece of equipment, the integration of my hands and its controller seemed instantly intuitive – almost natural. My senses quickly attuned to the gameplay, as this initial melding of my body and machine drew me far from the reality I had come to know in the sprawling suburbs of a rust belt city.

This was perhaps my first experience in the way of bodily detachment and alternate realities, as mediated through technology. In my relatively short time since then, I have witnessed the advent of the Internet, genetic modification, and artificial intelligence, to name just a few advancements. I have come of age in a world that is increasingly experienced and understood by humans through our symbiotic relationships with machines.

Systems borne of mechanical precision can seem at once constricting and liberating; actions are prescribed, parts move with united purpose, yet there is a certain comfort in the surrender of agency.

In this work, I take on a role that I have progressed into since that first encounter – I am part of a new culmination of natural cyborgs.