Weathervane

In 2007, Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated that Google’s future ambitions were “‘to enable Google users to be able to ask questions such as “What shall I do tomorrow?” and “What job shall I take?”’ Such statements reveal an emerging cultural logic that goes well beyond mere prediction: a fully oracular ambition. An age of both big data analytics and unprecedented precariousness (for instance, in the job market, and in finance) brings great emphasis to future-oriented forms of thought; but what kinds of truth value can they claim? How do new predictive practices discipline decision? In light of these questions, I look to older arenas for envisioning the future, such as the Oracle of Delphi in ancient Greece, as loose reference points for a new body of work. How might idiosyncratic practices of prediction, which make use of unusual methods for reading objects, or emphasize the embodied experiences of oracles, speak back to the increasingly hegemonic predictive methods used today, and perhaps reveal something of their idiosyncrasies?

My ongoing project, Weathervane, presents an album of scores, salves and scaffolds for the decision-making process. I explore the oracular mode of address through object-making, song, dialogues with objects, video and performance. In doing so, I examine the libidinal economies that underpin the desire to know the future, and to imprint uncertain worlds with "good" decisions.