Name: ART63 – Digital Conscience
Artist: Nomad Clan
Digital Conscience is an exploration into digital identity, virtual reality, over stimulation and value systems during the most challenging global shift of our time.
We live in a world that is defined by status, aspirations of fame, wealth, success and social media identity. The digital era is well and truly upon us and the pandemic has highlighted a disturbing wealth gap which is ever growing. Digital poverty is affecting many low income homes in the UK. Families struggling to afford data and access tech in an era where life largely depends on it. How to navigate to the nearest food bank, education and home schooling, online shopping and filling in digital forms all become a huge hurdle without access to the internet. This digital exclusion in what feels like a dystopian system, as the government continues to push many services and businesses online is a total juxtaposition to the flip side of the coin where the richest men in the world with unimaginable levels of wealth drive technology to new levels – the American dream reserved for a tiny group of elite. We have a chance to be a community again. Do we aspire to be at the top or do we come together, promote altruism and bring power to the people?
Nomad Clan is the collective of Cbloxx and AYLO, an internationally-acclaimed, street art muralist duo based in Manchester UK. The power and pathos in their muralism and fine art showcase both the craft and social awareness of cultural flux for which they are known. Although primarily recognised for their iconic monumental street murals around the world, they are no stranger to installations and studio-based woks.
Through years of collaboration, Nomad Clan have fine-tuned their artistic fusion that delivers an unmistakable style. Each mural has a strong significance to the environment it sits in, combining playful scenes often from local heritage with stylistically detailed portraits of characters from some of the tales they hear in the varied locations they visit to paint. The main focus of their work is to proudly celebrate local history, folklore and heritage but on a deeper level often contains the socioeconomic issues affecting the area, for example the demise of the fishing industry, environmental awareness, the plight of refugees and migration, closures of mills and lack of jobs, inner city social deprivation and other politicised topics.
Nomad Clan’s extensive muralism has given them insight into less publicised global issues, whether out in the desert wastelands of California exploring largely abandoned towns, running creative projects in Flint during the water crisis or working out in refugee camps in Calais, each experience creeps into studio work and muralism alike and with this fusion of past and present, the viewer is invited to explore, compare and contrast. Think piece, social injustices, digital poverty.
Artist website: nomadclan.co.uk
Instagram: @nomad.clan