Apophenia: Making False Connections in the Metaverse

Apophenia is the tendency to see connections or meaningful patterns between unrelated or random things. Once regarded as a mental illness, this phenomenon is now understood as a nearly universal human experience and will only become more profound as we continue to blur our physical reality with digital reality. Sometimes giving rise to bizarre conspiracy theories, sometimes simply driving us ever further into our own echo chambers, apophenia is becoming more and more of a liability as the metaverse expands.

The artists Aidan Lincoln and Natale Adgnot will give a talk on February 18th that explores the way cognitive bias, illusion and fallacy can shape our perceptions of ourselves and each other. As the main avatars in our own corners of the metaverse, we inhabit virtual realities that are increasingly personalized while building and refining virtual selves that often have no basis in reality. It can be difficult to discern between truth and falsehood, especially online. Each artist, using unconventional mediums, makes sculptures that challenge the viewer to question what they are seeing. They invite the viewer to slow down, analyze the objects and consider them from multiple perspectives – actions that, taken together, offer our best defense against delusion.