Year of Production: 2025
Country of Origin: Thailand
Medium: Print on fabric, metal frame, custom software, openworm simulation, mixed media.
Concept / Idea:
The simulations of four parallel worlds of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans—a model organism whose neural map has been simulated. They are displayed with each quadrant. Each quadrant presents a different condition based on the quadrant's description: induced pain, induced pleasure, or complete absence of the worm.
The installation also stands as a sculptural totem—a monument to the continuity of human civilization, questioning the inevitability of its persistence. It asks: Should we continue to reproduce and perpetuate our lineage, or accept extinction as the natural end of our cycle?
Inspiration / Context:
Inspired by a diagram in David Benatar’s book Better Never to Have Been, which visualizes the asymmetry between existence and non-existence through the axis of pain and pleasure, the work expands this idea into the realm of digital simulation. It not only revisits Benatar’s antinatalist argument but also reflects on the ontology of simulation itself—questioning the boundaries of consciousness in the post-AI era. If, at a certain point, a simulation achieves consciousness, would we then face an ethical dilemma akin to that of creating and subjecting sentient beings to suffering?
Artist Statement:
Wasawat Somno is an antinatalist and possibly anarchist propagandist disguised as a digital, tech, and media artist. He often uses code as his medium to explore and exploit the intersections between the technological world and our physical realities. His practice is deeply rooted in speculative fiction and other methodologies of investigation and propaganda, through which he probes, questions, and disseminates his ideological and philosophical positions.
