Alan Rath's Info Glut II sprawls its spindly cable tentacles and electronic monitors across the wall.

The effect is at once human and machine, organic and electronic, like the monstrous next phase in the evolution of a hospital defibrillator. Alan Rath designed his own animation program for this: two hands signing mostly nonsensical phrases in ASL, attached by electrical limbs to a central mouth. 

The hands convey the piece’s central theme of communication overload, but the eye is instinctively drawn to the large, sensually parted set of lips in pop-art turquoise…almost erotic in isolation, but disturbingly cold in context. Like a techno-sexual fantasy out of a David Cronenberg film, this grossly visceral yet synthetic creation is typical of Rath, who operates in that vague place where living organisms end and technology begins.

The message is now familiar to a generation that's over-saturated with technology and information, but when the sculpture debuted in 1997, it was strangely prophetic. This was a time when the "Millenials" were still learning cursive, when a research report meant a trip to the local library where you'd scour the card catalog, and when audiences were still wowed by the CGI effects of Starship Troopers…

It was a better time, it was a simpler time (insert nostalgic ramblings of Grandpa Simpson). Most people had only just become aware of the Vesuvius known as the worldwide web which was just erupting, and few of us could conceive of the vast quantity of information that would bury us, forever encasing the world Han Solo style, somewhere between reality and technology. 

This informational deluge makes the very visceral sin of gluttony a cold, mechanical thing and has produced a generation that over-imbibes in any and all stimulation. We know the measurement of Kim Kardashian’s backside; we know our friend Blane is hungover at work; we know our friend Tiffany broke her diet to have a caramel macchiato and feels totes guilty about it: #GurlPuhleeze#YOLO#LMFAO!

We read more “words” per day than any generation in history, yet are appallingly ignorant.  We are greedy for all the wrong kinds of info.  Rath seems to ask, “Can the information age be uninformed?” Info Glut II predicted this contemporary phenomenon with uncanny accuracy.  To the luddites among us, this is a grim, apocalyptic vision. 

Yet the messages include humorously trite warnings such as “objects in mirror are closer than they appear."  They're playful in nature.  Rath (who is, after all, a techie and electronic music fanatic) teases, but doesn’t preach.