What if Earth was a machine? An absurd, over-engineered piston-and-belt nightmare buried under our feet, groaning, humming, probably grumbling about humanity’s idiocy. And like every machine, it’s needs stuff. It demands maintenance. It spits warnings. You don’t just floor the throttle and hope nothing catches fire.
This is the strange, slightly terrifying meditation behind my latest visual Dream Journal collaboration with AI, Internal Combustion NFTs, now on Zero One. The dream stumbled upon a giant piston buried deep underground, turning endlessly, tangled in roots and rock, torchlight flickering through a forest of roots, or was it electric cables?
The piston, ridiculous as it is, whispers a lesson we refuse to learn: everything, machines, humans, the planet, needs care. Watch the gauges. Notice the warning lights. Don’t run it too hard. Give what’s needed. Listen with your head, your heart, and your gut, you know the thing you ignore until it starts giving you screaming diarrhoea… that’s a warning sign.
If you had the power to change one law, what would it be and why?
And yet, look at us. Laws, cops, gods, all built to enforce the obvious. Really, all we ever needed was attention, kindness and decency, maybe a tiny shred of self-restraint. Don’t be a jerk and the machine keeps humming. Ignore it, and… well, the machine doesn’t care about your excuses.
Kids Book Illustrator Andy C Marshall 