Sophie Sayers

My current artistic practice explores the replaceable and disposable nature of the human worker as an object of function, with emphasis on the changing relationship between humanity and technology.

The traffic cone is a recurring motif, symbolising a futile warning – an easily ignored or discarded object that can only signify danger ahead, with no power to change the outcome. For Prove You Are A Human, a traffic cone was captured as a 3D model using photogrammetry software and 3D printed in PLA plastic. This replica was then scanned using the same process, and a new copy of this printed. Each new replica loses some of the detail and quality of its predecessor, leaving the final form as little more than a flat square. As the viewer considers the point to which the cone ceases to be a cone, we consider at what point we as humans lose value when we are no longer able to carry out our role in society.

Other construction and safety imagery is utilised throughout my work as an exploration of authority, familiarity, and manual work in an increasingly automated world. I love the bee 10000000000 is a series of safety signs, sliced up and rearranged. The new signs retain the urgency and authority of the originals, but none of the meaning. The viewer is urged to act, but unsure what exactly they are being asked to do. The rearranged signs are reminiscent of artificial intelligence ‘hallucinations’, a phenomenon where a nonsensical response is generated in error. The title of came from a conversation with a large language model chatbot – a ‘joke’ the chatbot made decoded from a binary sequence into ASCII text, an in-joke between machines.

Furthering the hallucination theme is Watch Your Step, a yellow a-frame sign where the warning message has been stripped away to resemble a current weakness in generative image models: the difficulty in generating text within images. The title is a play on similar warning signs which out of context sound more menacing than helpful.

Serving Purpose is the final fusion of human and object. Situated in a suburban street, anonymous cone people stand as an obstruction facing the viewer. The pointed hood has had many associations throughout human history, as a symbol of punishment, shame, disguise, terror, and hate. As a generated image decontextualised by a machine, the associations are unintentional, but the human viewer interprets this as anything but neutral.