Film & Video (Film & Video)

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace takes its title from a 1967 poem by American writer Richard Brautigan, which describes a utopian future where computers are in harmony with and protective of mankind and nature, performing all the necessary work while we retreat back towards nature. In Sisto’s work, a computer generated voice recites Brautigan’s poem while a series of digitally rendered 3D objects with a sleek, mirrored finish, float weightlessly across the screen. Sisto’s work also shares its title with the 2011 BBC documentary series by filmmaker Adam Curtis, which has the view that computers have failed in their task of liberating humanity and have instead created a simplified and distorted world around us.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

In the video No Not Nothing Never , a group of 23 domestic fans arranged in a mountainous desert landscape, move in perfect synchrony. Although when placed in this arid geography, the fans become evocative of wind turbines that generate electricity, the fans used by Pascual Sisto consume energy in a futile attempt to alleviate the dry heat. The familiar humming of the fans is eclipsed by the sounds of the strong desert winds that pass by as the fans turn.