Ergot is a large-scale triptych, named after a toxic fungus that historically infected grains like rye, causing hallucinations, convulsions, and psychological disorientation. Later synthesised into LSD, ergot becomes, in this work, a metaphor for digital intoxication: a pleasurable system that subtly distorts perception, emotion, and selfhood.

The work, composed of three plexiglass panels on an aluminium frame, acts as an altarpiece for the digital world, where everything happens simultaneously. It originates from the personal experience of online saturation: a space overflowing with stimulation and outrage that paradoxically feels flat and numbing. This tension became the emotional and conceptual starting point.

Referencing Byung-Chul Han’s psychopolitics and Jean Baudrillard’s hyperreality, an artwork is a world of simulacra constructed using AI-generated imagery, CGI, photogrammetry, and glitch aesthetics. Hypermasculine avatars, influencers, crystals, supplements, and dancing police become icons of a culture of craving, optimisation,  aestheticised and gamified violence and control.
Pixels and glitches visualise error as resistance and reveal cracks in the illusion, becoming a symbol for freedom.  

Underlying it all is the idea of techno-feudalism, a new form of capitalism in which the free market and individual choice are vanishing. A handful of corporate landlords—Meta, Apple, Google, Amazon and a few others - own the infrastructure of life, and we pay rent not just in money but also in our personal data, time, and emotion. Over time, our feeds become hallucinations—hyper-personalised, distorted versions of reality.

Ergot, 2025,
330 x 250cm, digital print, plexiglass, aluminium.