The world has been digitized. This is true of people’s attention, attracted this way and that by phone and desktop apps; money, funneled evermore through cryptocurrency; statistical analysis, which can compute information greater and faster; and even human communication, arbitrated by social media and voice-activated software. But has the world been improved? Amay Kataria’s artworks use sophisticated computer coding, interactive software, and more to interrogate the seemingly intractable place of technology in the world today. His grandest proposal takes data visualization to a whole new level: a doomsday clock counting down the time until a disastrous two-degree rise in global temperature is no longer avoidable. Kataria envisions this hi-tech timer front and center in Times Square, in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, and on the Eiffel Tower, proposing that what got us into this mess in the first place, if used judiciously, might get us out, just in the nick of time.

—Lori Waxman 2020-02-15 4:49 PM