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A Fountain for a Dark Future was presented in September/October 2021 in the Project Room at Locust Projects in Miami, Florida. The piece integrates robotic elements, a re-created Modernist sculpture, and a series of water pumps to create a large-scale, improvised fountain. Through these combined forms, the work alludes to disruptive events on the human horizon, hinting at concerns such as sea level rise, automation, and the rise of authoritarianism.
The central element of the work is a larger-than-life re-creation of Umberto Boccioni’s iconic sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. This work, created in 1913, sought to depict the dynamism and motion which fascinated the Italian Futurists. Futurism also harbored darker tendencies, celebrating war and destruction as ‘cleansing forces’. This attitude seems to rhyme with the ‘move fast and break things’ ideology expounded in contemporary Silicon Valley. Similarly, the embrace of Mussolini by the Futurists has an echo in the recent electoral successes of authoritarian right-wing ideology around the world.
In the current moment of compounding and interconnected crises, the work hints at a sterile, atomized and and inhuman future which may await us if we, collectively, allow these catastrophes to play out to their logical conclusions.
Special thanks to Locust Projects for their support in realizing this new work.
All photos and video by Zachary Balber Photography.
A Fountain for a Dark Future, 2021. Aluminum, plywood, pine, fiberglass-reinforced plaster, cellulose sponges, electronic components, containment trays and plumbing components.
8’ 6” x 12’ x 10.’
Installation view.
A Fountain for a Dark Future, 2021. Aluminum, plywood, pine, fiberglass-reinforced plaster, cellulose sponges, electronic components, containment trays and plumbing components.
8’ 6” x 12’ x 10.’
Installation view.
A Fountain for a Dark Future, 2021. Aluminum, plywood, pine, fiberglass-reinforced plaster, cellulose sponges, electronic components, containment trays and plumbing components.
8’ 6” x 12’ x 10.’
Installation view.
A Fountain for a Dark Future, 2021. Aluminum, plywood, pine, fiberglass-reinforced plaster, cellulose sponges, electronic components, containment trays and plumbing components.
8’ 6” x 12’ x 10.’
Installation view.
A Fountain for a Dark Future, 2021. Aluminum, plywood, pine, fiberglass-reinforced plaster, cellulose sponges, electronic components, containment trays and plumbing components.
8’ 6” x 12’ x 10.’
Installation view.
A Fountain for a Dark Future, 2021. Aluminum, plywood, pine, fiberglass-reinforced plaster, cellulose sponges, electronic components, containment trays and plumbing components.
8’ 6” x 12’ x 10.’
Installation view.
A Fountain for a Dark Future, 2021. Aluminum, plywood, pine, fiberglass-reinforced plaster, cellulose sponges, electronic components, containment trays and plumbing components.
8’ 6” x 12’ x 10.’
Installation view.
A Fountain for a Dark Future, 2021. Aluminum, plywood, pine, fiberglass-reinforced plaster, cellulose sponges, electronic components, containment trays and plumbing components.
8’ 6” x 12’ x 10.’
Installation view.
A Fountain for a Dark Future, 2021. Aluminum, plywood, pine, fiberglass-reinforced plaster, cellulose sponges, electronic components, containment trays and plumbing components.
8’ 6” x 12’ x 10.’
Installation view.