Keith Armstrong
Eremocene (Age of Loneliness)

A mysterious creature glows from within. Witnessed from several vantage points, it moves uncannily, a fluid motion within a dense blackness. Sound, vision and movement are as one. A life-like, biomorphic form fades in and out of perception.

The concept of ‘the extinction of human experience’ expresses our fear for all that will be rendered senseless when an ancient, intelligent, biodiverse world descends into permanent darkness. But as one series of conceptions slip into extinction, so others flow on. Eremocene suggests that we might instead embrace artificially intelligent ‘things’, which have little need for dated legacies such as excess light or the long-extinguished sounds of biological life. Philosopher and biologist EO Wilson calls such possible futures the Eremocene – an Age of Loneliness.

Eremocene has developed out of ten years of sustained collaborations with life scientists, ecologists and sustainability professionals. It reflects upon both the vulnerability and resilience of marine, terrestrial and human ecologies as they are forced to relate to today’s increasingly ‘overheated’ and artificially intelligent worlds.

Supported by Queensland University of Technology, Creative Lab Research Centre, and Embodiedmedia.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.