How Beauteous Mankind Is!
This work is a representation of some contemporary saints, Henry Ford, Sigmund Freud, and Søren Kierkegaard. These men were chosen because of the gears of society they were pivotal in starting in motion: Ford with mass production, Freud's influence on psychology, and Kierkegaard being the father of existentialism.
The inspiration to elevate these historically, yet secular figures to a religious level was inspired by Aldous Huxley's Brave New World where Ford, primarily and to a lesser extent Freud were referred to as the God of their dystopian society.
Because these works reference Huxley's dystopian, physically and emotionally safe society a digital candle is the most appropriate votive object, there is no danger of fire, or of being burned, yet the emotional reaction to a digitized candle is by the same device watered down. This work, by referencing Brave New World (even when viewed without the original context, but especially with it) portrays the same anti-dystopic warning as the book.
The title is a quotation from Shakespeare’s Tempest that occurs just before the line that gave Huxley the title for his work.
O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!
The Tempest (V, i)
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