January 2023. Custom gold plated FR-4 printed circuit board, vintage integrated circuits and miscellaneous electronic components.
This 400mm x 500mm picture is inspired by the Cyberpunk genre. Imagine a dystopian world 300-400 years in the future. This person was floating in the ocean on a stormy night when their boat capsized. They were sucked into the Matrix by the machine underneath the binary waters. This unlucky person’s hand is reaching up for help as it’s slowly being pulled in by the machine below. The ocean is of course binary, because data is stored in clouds and clouds rain over the ocean. An assortment of colorful resistors, inductors and capacitors represent schools of fish. An assortment of vintage gold capped integrated circuits and circuit traces depict a coral reef that’s more of a machine than a living being. The remaining “real” fish have become hosts to parasitic integrated circuits. A sea urchin made with a QFP-44 IC (quad flat pack with 44 pins) and circuit board traces looks like it is attempting to eat the last remaining fish, but it’s actually implanting a parasitic 555 timer.
