Axis Mundi takes its title from the Latin term that the Romanian historian and philosopher Mircea Eliade adopted in the late 1950s for his concept of a sacred centre: a channel linking heaven and earth. Built from data racks and cabling, Bennetts' tower stands as a contemporary altar to the data centre, where we might reckon with the capacity of algorithms and AI to guide us through processes akin to divination.

The work draws attention to our growing faith in the algorithm's ability to foretell our bodily futures. Found footage embedded in the tower shows images of descent at the top of the stack and ascent at its base. Single-cup headphones fixed to the data rack seat play Bennetts' digital double, an AI voice offering a sermon-like benediction. Through the collision of sacred cosmology, technological power and fascist monumentalism, Axis Mundi exposes the hidden systems behind our faith in data, questioning whether the algorithm can ever truly know the body it claims to read.

Commissioned by the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Naarm/Melbourne, for NEW26.