Coal Drawing Machine, 2012 Installation: machine, coal, steel, epoxy paint and paper banners Variable dimensions Exhibited for the first time in a former coal mine in Belgium, at Manifesta 9 “The Deep of the Modern”, this paper labyrinth generates from the output by a machine which draws with coal. By making an analogy between the mine’s excavated underground and Hell, the drawings are repetitive patterns of magic symbols that can invoke demons but which also are considered to be the predecessors of the electronic circuits that are in use today. The machine functions through the span of the exhibition, it’s output accumulating day after day. The Coal Drawing Machine, an installation, questions the tension between the hand made quality of the traditional coal drawings and the fact of these being industrially produced by a machine. It is a piece that recalls the myth of robots and machines becoming sensible, as for instance in the novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick, later filmed as “Blade Runner”. |