C l i f f h a n g e r
C l i f f h a n g e r
Cliffhanger explores the dynamic forces that shape both landscapes and media through the operation of a speculative “leisure machine”. James Hutton’s foundational geological text “The Theory of the Earth” will drive an artistic process that reimagines ideas of resource extraction. Visitors operate the leisure machine, which plays Hutton's text by fragmenting and reassembling it. This action produces a live stream of recombined language feeding directly into a computer system, converting the fragments into prompts for generating fake landscape images. Forming a counterpoint to these pristine AI-generated scenes, the actions of the leisure machine will also drive an abstract film narrative and sound score composed from video sequences shot in a slate quarry in Finnmark in the Norwegian Arctic, portraying a mountain landscape being prised apart and dismantled.
A Dissonant Landscape – in a cultural moment where the techno-optimism of the 1990s has shifted towards technological fatalism, AI has become both a coping mechanism and a negative symbol of environmental entanglement. Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance illuminates this tension: while AI is often promoted for its innovation, productivity, and convenience, its environmental and social costs are frequently rationalised or ignored. This tension underpins the project’s conceptual inquiry and drives its critical engagement with contemporary socio-technical systems.
Cliffhanger is a collaborative project by artists Bruce Gilchrist, Svein Flygari Johansen, and software developer Jonny Bradley that seeks to communicate a complex narrative across artistic, environmental, and technological systems. The project proposes a combinatorial method and conceptual framework to explore accessible ways of discussing and responding to a rapidly emerging AI-driven culture intersecting with nature.