Gridmania is the feeling of being trapped within the grid, of having to comply relentlessly to its rules and sacrificing your identity for the sake of the system. Everyone is an agent of the grid and has a role to play in its function. When you go to work in the morning you pay a bus driver to take you there, who themselves has had to pay another driver to get them to work, and so on. Even such common things as flushing the toilet or putting rubbish in a bin is an act of engaging with the grid. Being a part of this system requires total submission of one’s being to survive, sacrificing hours, days, months, and years of one’s life to earn a living to partake in it, with minimal return other than bare necessities. The jobs one must do can often feel taxing, juxtaposing one’s inherent desire to be free and follow their passion. Gridmania is this juxtaposition, the cancer of the paradox. This series aims to express this sentiment and offer a relief to the spiritual depravity of the grid.
Tom Allwinton Art 