Marko Mäetamm

Mäetamm is an Estonian multimedia artist who works in video, drawing, interactive CDs, and the Internet. Me-Supernatural, 2000, is an epic Internet graphic novel involving the hermetically sealed trinity of God, the Devil, and Mäetamm himself. It is as if the all-powerful figures of good and evil are consumed, to the exclusion of all other earthly matters, with Mäetamm’s progress on the material plane. Representing fundamental metaphysical forces, Me-Supernatural develops narrative strategies and iconography that are childlike yet complex. Mäetamm’s character is reminiscent of nineteenth-century utopian philosophers who cobbled together science, pseudo-science, Christianity, the mythic, and the anecdotal with a populist and accessible rhetoric to persuade potential followers. In a modern-day Noah story, God commands Mäetamm to build him a better home. Mäetamm creates “Brainland—Home of God,” which is a kind of tube protecting an exposed brain that is “constantly irradiating absolute knowledge and eternal life.” As one progresses through the piece, the story and the illustrations become increasingly esoteric and baroque, with supernova brains shooting through the universe and mathematical calculations measuring the meteoric speed. God and the Devil conspire and the rapid-fire iconography that flashes between suggests the ongoing eternal battle. This is when Jesus arrives, and although his arrival promises salvation, the situation just gets weirder.

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