Ariel Hassan’s Of Mercy and Time (2023) collapses old gods and new technologies into one another. In the work, we encounter a religious figure, whose form is a hybridisation of the Buddhist deity Tārā and the ancient Roman god Saturn. In bringing together the two figures, Hassan—as the work’s title suggests—brings together an amalgam of their qualities: Tārā’s mercy and Saturn’s association with time. Yet one does not need to know these exact cultural references in order to register the figure’s divine antecedence. This is a work whose effect is borne as much out of feeling as it is out of intellect. Seemingly cast completely out of burnished gold, the imposing figure in Of Mercy and Time visually transports us to a theistic context without a single word needing to be uttered. The aural elements of the work that are present only amplify this sense of transportation, as Christian traditions are introduced into the work through the sound of Johann Sebastian Bach’s aria ‘Erbarme dich, mein Gott’ (“Have mercy, My God”). Hassan’s digitally rearranged soundscape emerges from his figure’s stomach, grounding the transcendence of Bach within the physical form.
Although one might expect to behold this central figure in a church, temple, or shrine, Of Mercy and Time exists in an entirely different setting: the space of virtual reality. Here, Hassan’s creativity is untrammelled. He is able to mould forms that are untethered from our terrestrial world. As he explains, there is no gravity or physical constraints in this place: “it’s the capacity of VR to do something that is completely immaterial or intangible.” But while the revolving otherworldly figure in Of Mercy and Time appears to transcend our reality, it also remains indelibly mired in it. On some level, the virtual-nature of the work seems to reflect our hyper-consumption of technology and the conditions of our logged-in, online, ever-streaming existence today.
When looking at the work, I find myself asking, whether it is a portrait of the new religion of the twenty first century, which sees so much of our lives contoured around our hand-held devices. The very form of the work harbours this provocation—as it adopts many of the tropes of religious transcendence, while at the same time withholding the ultimate practice of worship. Yet the work also cleaves a clear path away from the gamification of VR and its familiar deployment as entertainment. “The user is not entitled to operate the actions that are happening. There is no interactivity,” Hassan says. “You are putting yourself in a space that is intangible and is out of your jurisdiction.” Of Mercy and Time transacts in familiar technologies and recognisable symbolism, while ultimately moving beyond both.
Tai Mitsuji, 2024
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