Tentacular Festival. James Bridle

The more technology that surrounds us, the less capable we are of understanding what is going on, and what are the causes of things. This is the main idea in New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future, the book that culminates James Bridle’s ongoing investigation of the darkest corners of the networks, systems and services that determine our existence. For the last 10 years Bridle has developed strategies and devices to give us “new ways of seeing,” letting us understand all that we are missing if we just stay in the seductive surface of the interface. These have included drawing the outline of military drones in the pavement, printing every version that has ever existed of a wikipedia article, or building traps to catch self driving cars.

James Bridle is an artist and writer working across technologies and disciplines. Their artworks have been commissioned by galleries and institutions and exhibited worldwide and on the internet. Their writing on literature, culture and networks has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Wired, the Atlantic, the Guardian, and the Observer. “New Dark Age”, their book about technology, knowledge, and the end of the future, was published in 2018, and they wrote and presented “New Ways of Seeing” for BBC Radio 4 in 2019.