‘The Simple Life’ by Karen Cantuq from Mexico is a wonderful and mockingly playful composition incongruously placing a posing Astronaut in a monochromatic and featureless field with two sheep sitting impassively in this otherworldly figure’s presence.
The complexity of the spaceman’s gear, built to sustain life in the most hostile environment imaginable to humans, set against such timeless rural simplicity, makes for a fascinating juxtaposition of subject and surrounds. The piece invites us to meditate on the artificial landscape we inhabit, not merely in the physical sense but in the social context in which we live our lives, lives we increasingly experience through the medium of smart devices.
The image appears to metaphorically suggest that we no longer feel comfortable, in fact, feel vulnerability without the protective cocoon of technology, as if occupying some inhospitable world which we can only interface with using an impersonal App.
