Art: ‘Metal and Flesh’ by Daniela Leyva
🏆 1st Place – Art Competition
Title: Metal and Flesh
Artist: Daniela Leyva
Grade: 12th Grade
School: Ánimo Ralph Bunche Charter High School
Medium: Mixed Media
Artist Statement:
Will machines replace humanity? How am I supposed to live in a world where a soulless machine’s creation is in place of the art that I love to see and create? Corporations have used technology to turn humanity into a machine for profit. Our society as a whole has had its soul stripped away in favor of money and power. In my painting, I wanted to portray the consequences of not just machines, but machines in the wrong hands and how they affect us in every-day life, a constant issue we cannot overlook for much longer. As technologies like AI advance, we can see how the problem of companies taking advantage of the decline in mental health will only become an even bigger issue. They create artificial companions to fill the void they’ve purposely left in our lives. I portrayed this issue in the 4th ad I created on the top. We can hardly rely on our representatives in government to regulate AI technology because of corporate political lobbying that goes on behind the scenes. In addition to exploiting the most vulnerable, artificial intelligence is on its way to replacing and dividing people. AI will only accelerate the dangers of disinformation. In our polarized society, the ramifications of this technology going unregulated will be severe. AI has begun replacing humans, from delivery drivers to artists. Companies prefer to use these machines if it means their labor costs will be lower, so C-suite executives can increase their wealth at the expense of workers. As an artist, the threat of AI in the hands of society’s elites scares me. Perhaps the only way to catch up to these machines is to replace parts of ourselves, our flesh, with metal and wires. The Elon Musk-owned company Neuralink is working to develop brain-implantable chips, but considering his ideologies, he likely hopes to make the brainchip a common part of our lives, something that is required to adapt. Corporations clearly don’t care if people are replaced; they don’t care about our lives. Machines could be used to save people, as advancements in the medical field have made it possible to heal the sick, but there’s a price to pay. For this reason, I’ve included the phrase “Deny, Defend, Depose,” words written on the three bullets Luigi Mangione used to kill the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, whose company denies hundreds of life-saving claims every day. Machines have also played a disastrous role in increasing the wealth gap between the rich and poor. These methods of exploitation have been successful in enriching corporations, providing people with levels of wealth that no one should have. With the net worth of these tech giants could alleviate issues such as homelessness, but those with power will never do anything which they would not benefit from. Society is suffering the consequences of the actions of those in power in order to gain more profit, extracting the Earth’s resources while exploiting us all, too. Machines require resources, and every machine comes at an environmental cost. Though the damage done from electrically-charged machines is less than those powered by fossil fuels, there is still harm done in the extraction of the resources needed to build their batteries. No matter how we frame it, the benefits from technology will come at the cost of our Earth. Regarding the symbolism of the different components of my painting, the man on the left is representative of the average person, who lives their everyday life in this dystopian world that’s closer to reality than we can imagine. In his head there is a brain chip, which is representative of how we’ll be forced to adapt to this world. The man on the right is meant to represent the corporations, CEOs, and tech billionaires that have used machines and technology, represented by the robot dog, to further their own goals. Additionally, I gave the man cybernetic implants, his metallic fingers, and that hand is connected to the leash of his mechanical companion, showing how technology is making its mark on humanity. The dog is artificial intelligence at its current stage: dangerous to the daily person, but on the leash of the corporations and not yet as advanced as a sentient human being. This scene all takes place on a train, which is symbolic of the passage of time and of how everyone is forced to remain inside as this train moves and the technology develops. Finally, the reflective windows serve as both a reminder and immersive feature, which remind the viewer that we’re all a part of this seemingly fictional dystopia that’s a soon-to-be reality for us all.
