Motherboard, an AR future monument, appears as an abstracted human spine flanked by arterial, network-like structures fanning out from either side, hovering above Los Angeles City Hall. I selected this site as a symbol of dysfunctional centralized local governance and community care gone wrong. Some of the most formidable challenges we face as a city are mirrored on national level; a lack of shared civic and educational resources, an extreme wealth gap, unaffordable health care, food deserts, shade from the sun, limited affordable housing, gentrification, absent sanitation, biased policing, among others. None of these inequities occur in a vacuum, they are systemic, interrelated, and have developed over centuries from the colonizing origins of this country. In imagining a speculative future monument, I had to consider these current concerns in aggregate. Motherboard is inspired by models of efficiency: generative, decentralized computing power, the body itself, and other organic systems of support and communication present in tree roots and mycelium networks.
