"The Promise of Babylon" places Dominic Harris in a direct and critical dialogue with art history, from the Dutch Golden Age vanitas painters, who used wilting flowers to signify mortality, to the sublime landscapes of J.M.W. Turner. Harris subverts the memento mori tradition; here, technology is not a symbol of hubris but a tool for transcendence, arresting the very decay that has preoccupied artists for centuries. He similarly tames the Romantic sublime, replacing its inherent terror with an empowering, interactive beauty. In an era defined by profound "Anthropocene Anxiety," the work offers a powerful, albeit utopian, counter-narrative. It is a sanctuary built of light and data, a perfected nature that questions our relationship with the organic world and our increasing reliance on digital mediation to experience it.

Harris’s practice has consistently explored the intersection of nature, technology, and viewer participation. "The Promise of Babylon" represents a significant maturation of these themes, moving to a fully realised, sculptural form that is both monumental and deeply personal. It aligns his work with that of contemporary new media artists like teamLab and Refik Anadol, yet his focus remains distinct in its intimate, almost romantic, engagement with botanical precision and its quiet optimism. Unlike the data-driven abstraction of Anadol or the boundary-dissolving immersion of teamLab, Harris creates responsive objects of handcrafted digital beauty. The work is not a lament for a lost world, but a technologically-wrought vision of a future where beauty can be rendered eternal—a promise of paradise finally, and exquisitely, kept.