OBSOLESCENE // The Anderson Gallery
Richmond, VA
January-Feburary 2022
press release
“And of course she had studied the civilization that had immediately preceded her own — the civilization that had mistaken the functions of the system, and had used it for bringing people to things, instead of for bringing things to peop
le… She shrank back into the room, and the wall closed up again.”
E.M. Forster, The Machine Stops, November 1909
What does it mean to plan your own obsolescence?
OBSOLESCENE refers to the planned obsolescence of technology, including plastics, and the obsolescence humans will soon face as a result of that same technology. Obsolescence:the process of becoming obsolete or outdated and no longer used. The suffix “-cene” refers to geologic time, a combining form meaning “new,” “recent,” used as the final element of a compound word, as in, Pleistocene. I see synthetic material as a portrait of our severance from nature. Humans have become an invasive species, bringing with us “disposable” never-decomposing materials we refuse to halt making in the name of comfort and convenience. I implicate myself as a part of this in using only waste generated by my own life and lifestyle.
As antitheses of organic matter, the materials I use can only exist because humans engineered them. Will we create simulations of the natural experiences of days past, using artificial means?
