![\"Karl](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790669181_371_8c50b3df29f0bcf7c5c79c2544a28eba75538e424ae1fbc71e23b5ac052c5337.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
September 29, 2026 \u2014 11:00am<\/p>\n
Save<\/p>\n
You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n
Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n Soon after she was diagnosed with a rare muscle disease, Amanda Bennetts started noticing a change in the content she was being served in her social media feed.<\/p>\n \u201cI started seeing these really bizarre ads on SoundCloud and Instagram,\u201d says the conceptual artist from Queensland\u2019s Sunshine Coast. \u201cOne was for a funeral home; it was just an image of a white coffin. It was this constant assault whenever I wanted to see my friends\u2019 Instagram posts.\u201d<\/p>\n Bennetts has lived with multiple sclerosis since she was 22; she is 40 now. When initially diagnosed, in a time before targeted ads, \u201cI withdrew, became depressed\u201d. Were she getting that same diagnosis as a 22-year-old now and seeing the ads she\u2019s recently been served, she says, \u201cthat\u2019d be absolutely terrifying\u201d.<\/p>\n Four years ago, she received a second diagnosis of dermatomyositis, a disease that attacks the muscles and skin and is linked with a vastly increased risk of cancer. Though living with MS had developed her resilience, getting those ads, and the implicit suggestion that her time might soon be up, was not welcome as she struggled to understand a little-known condition.<\/p>\n \u201cI had never heard of the disease, and at times I couldn\u2019t walk and I was having to deal with my body changing, and instead of just asking my doctor questions or dealing with it in a mentally healthy way I was being assaulted with these ads,\u201d Bennetts says. \u201cThese algorithms<\/a> and this AI was telling me relentlessly that I\u2019m really unwell when I could have just been dealing with it in my own time with my doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n Axis Mundi, an artwork that features in the New26 survey show at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, is Bennetts\u2019 response to the uncomfortable realisation that her most vulnerable moments were being tapped into and monetised by invisible forces. In some ways, it\u2019s her stab at revenge.<\/p>\n A large sculptural piece, it comprises two server racks, stacked one on top of the other rather than side by side as they usually are in data centres<\/a>, their normal habitat. There are network switches, cooling fans, blanking plates, around five kilometres of cable, and eight screens.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re all veiled behind acrylic,\u201d she says of the monitors that flicker with the vague impression of images. \u201cI wanted to make it really obscure because we\u2019re just so glued to our screens without thinking of what infrastructure is driving them. And I think this veil or invisibility is what tech CEOs particularly hide behind<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The whole tower is pierced at multiple points by stainless-steel handrails, \u201can assistive technology\u201d on which Bennetts has increasingly had to rely. She likens their presence in the work to the arrows piercing the body of Saint Sebastian in religious paintings from the Renaissance.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted it to be violent,\u201d she says. \u201cBy trying to pierce it, the steel wounds it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I wanted it to be violent. By trying to pierce it, the steel wounds it.\u2019<\/p>\n Amanda Bennetts<\/p>\n Bennetts is unequivocal when I ask if she\u2019d be happy to have the piece in her own home, an old Queenslander.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, absolutely not. It\u2019s just so brutal looking, not pleasing at all. I wanted it to feel uncomfortable to look at and imposing. I definitely don\u2019t shy away from art that is uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n The piece takes its title from a Latin phrase used to describe the connection between heaven, Earth and the underworld. The concept is present in many religions and cultures, and has symbolic parallels in the way we understand and relate to man-made structures such as skyscrapers, as well as natural ones such as mountains. And, Bennetts suggests, there\u2019s something of the way tech bros have co-opted the imagery of the mountain as a challenge to be conquered at play here, too.<\/p>\n She calls the piece \u201ca techno-fascist monument\u201d, and says she can\u2019t imagine anyone wanting to buy it. \u201cIt would be great if an institution would buy it because I think it\u2019s super timely, but technology art also dates quickly, aesthetically.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s a rage against the machine element to this work, but Bennetts says her own view of technologies is \u201con the fence\u201d. Data can be helpful in tracking and predicting how her body will behave \u2013 though in an earlier art-science project she realised technology is much better at doing that en masse than it is for an individual \u2013 \u201cbut what\u2019s happening at the moment is pretty scary as far as the way it\u2019s changed how we socialise and interact with people, how people are addicted to their phones<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n Mostly, though, she wants to draw attention to the enormous shift that\u2019s under way in our relationship with technology and data.<\/p>\n Editor’s pick Substitute the word \u201calgorithm\u201d for \u201cGod\u201d, she says, and the sentence generally holds.<\/p>\n \u201cWe put so much mysticism on technology, all the things that we can\u2019t see, and when you\u2019ve just been diagnosed with a very serious disease and you get an ad for a coffin or a funeral home it acts as a rupture or a puncture. You can\u2019t help but think, \u2018Well, it knows something\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not the case, though. It\u2019s just picking up your searches and your worries and following you around everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n New26 is at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 111 Sturt Street, South Melbourne, until November 22. <\/p>\n The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n![\"Woman](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790669183_133_0963ad5abd235866249f3c1722949923c10e9581.jpeg\")
Woman v machine: Amanda Bennetts and her sculptural work Axis Mundi at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.Eddie Jim<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790669184_455_3854c2bc5b5332f47c5164651353612719527cdd.jpeg\")
The work comprises two data towers stacked vertically, pierced with stainless steel handrails in what Bennetts jokingly calls an act of revenge.Eddie Jim<\/p>\n![\"Bennetts](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790669186_449_c39ce1f442c1ba3ab6a93f242e49f0de2b1599c2.jpeg\")
Bennetts calls her work a \u201ctechno-fascist monument\u201d.Eddie Jim<\/p>\n![\"Flapper,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790669187_473_2e62cbfba06fe1e4dc0cc856c8661fef5ffeb430.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n