Mojotech is Betye Saar’s abbreviation for the “magic of technology” and the title of her large-scale installation from 1987 on view at Roberts Projects. Standing at the horizon of Saar’s trailing altarpiece, I’m reminded of the language of trees and how they communicate through ancient underground fungal networks. Around the installation’s edge, copper wire tails appear to worm out of (or into) the wall. Saar’s work functions like a wormhole—a tunnel connecting points separated in space and time—understanding technology as a constellation, or assemblage, with world-building potential, relating its networked nature to ancestral knowledge not unlike the language of trees.

Betye Saar: Mojotech
Roberts Projects
442 S. La Brea Ave.,
Los Angeles, CA 90036
On view through February 28, 2025

A part of PST ART: Art and Science Collide