D. J. Travers (b. 1990, Dublin) is a conceptual artist living and working in County Wicklow, Ireland. Informed by politics, art history, technology, and the internet, his work explores how systemic deception and disempowerment affect our emotional engagement with the world and with ourselves. 

Drawing on the Situationist International, Travers resists the notion of art as an act of free expression. Rather than pursuing a fixed aesthetic, he reacts instinctively to the disorientation of our profit-driven digital landscape. This perspective is sharpened by his time in the marketing sector, where nonstop connectivity and algorithmic management exposed the psychological toll of existence mediated by platforms.  

Central to Travers’ practice is a critical deconstruction of online systems that absorb, redirect, commodify, or neutralize vital speech, protest, and action, while amplifying empty conflict and ‘content’. Far from pure or minimal, these conditions are deliberately produced and sustained by economic, political, and institutional forces. Guided by Arte Povera’s rejection of aesthetic refinement, he responds by combining materials such as found objects and electronic detritus with ideas and forms that echo life under technocapitalism: precarious, overstimulating, convenient yet demanding, meaningless, and often unintentionally—but tellingly—funny.

In a society where the ‘spectacle’ overwhelms reality and museums invest millions to acquire Arte Povera works, this is art that acknowledges the limits of contemporary cultural attempts at repair. Instead, it offers viewers an offline dialogue of catharsis, recognition, and empathic clarity at a time when such experiences are needed yet largely unavailable.