Julian Charri猫re: Into the Hollow
Lars Dittrich and Andr茅 Schlechtriem are pleased to present a solo exhibition by Julian Charri猫re entitled Into The Hollow. For his third solo exhibition with the gallery in Berlin, Charri猫re will transform the space into a cabinet of geological curiosities from a possible post-digital era with an installation where selected pieces of manipulated molten rock are displayed in vitrines like topological fragments in a natural history museum from a time yet to come.
The presented objects are hybrids of congealed magma. Charri猫re has melted, transmuted and amalgamated current technological gadgets (smartphones, notebooks, hard drives etc.), including their stored memory, within molten rock. Through this artificial process, the artist forces the transfer of digital to geological strata in which only the potential of the previous storage powers remains. 鈥淭he precious metals contained in these sculptural stones鈥攖he ecologically problematic and economically controversial basis of our digital world鈥攁re mined in the furthest reaches of the Earth, and ultimately have been returned in Charri猫re鈥檚 metaphorical transformation process to their original form.鈥� (Julia Brennacher, 鈥淟iving in The Anthopocene,鈥� in The Forces Behind the Forms: Geology, Matter, Process in Contemporary Art, Cologne: Snoeck, 2016)
In bringing all these metal components together and by artificially returning them to their geological origins, Charri猫re re-creates a primal epicenter, making a connection between the very beginnings of our Earth, current industrial and technological processes and projecting a possible future. In his play with future geologies, Charri猫re constructs a synthetic image of a future past, a place where the traces of our civilization will hide among rock formations.
Charri猫re鈥檚 Into The Hollow encourages us to reflect on the circulation of the materials that are now melted into the stones as well as the relevance of deep mining as a necessary process for their extraction. The source of these materials, the physical open pit mines, represent the locus for the ingredients that drive our communication and technological society, while physically also constituting a negative image or inversion of the Biblical Tower of Babel.
From today鈥檚 mine to tomorrow鈥檚 monuments.
These minerals are excavated at different locations around the world, then shipped to countries like India, China or the United States to be assembled into technological devices, a process that may be considered a cultural crystallization of a globalized production scheme. Materials sourced from various geographies are brought together in physical objects by which we are all digitally connected.
When these become outdated they are sent to e-waste sites, where they are handpicked and separated in order to fuel more technology, thus re-entering the circulation process. Charri猫re interrupts this recycling flow by prematurely transmuting these delicate devices. Through this forcible intervention, he initiates a geo-artistic reflection on our digital consumer culture, a 鈥榞eo-reset鈥�: back to the future.
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Lars Dittrich and Andr茅 Schlechtriem are pleased to present a solo exhibition by Julian Charri猫re entitled Into The Hollow. For his third solo exhibition with the gallery in Berlin, Charri猫re will transform the space into a cabinet of geological curiosities from a possible post-digital era with an installation where selected pieces of manipulated molten rock are displayed in vitrines like topological fragments in a natural history museum from a time yet to come.
The presented objects are hybrids of congealed magma. Charri猫re has melted, transmuted and amalgamated current technological gadgets (smartphones, notebooks, hard drives etc.), including their stored memory, within molten rock. Through this artificial process, the artist forces the transfer of digital to geological strata in which only the potential of the previous storage powers remains. 鈥淭he precious metals contained in these sculptural stones鈥攖he ecologically problematic and economically controversial basis of our digital world鈥攁re mined in the furthest reaches of the Earth, and ultimately have been returned in Charri猫re鈥檚 metaphorical transformation process to their original form.鈥� (Julia Brennacher, 鈥淟iving in The Anthopocene,鈥� in The Forces Behind the Forms: Geology, Matter, Process in Contemporary Art, Cologne: Snoeck, 2016)
In bringing all these metal components together and by artificially returning them to their geological origins, Charri猫re re-creates a primal epicenter, making a connection between the very beginnings of our Earth, current industrial and technological processes and projecting a possible future. In his play with future geologies, Charri猫re constructs a synthetic image of a future past, a place where the traces of our civilization will hide among rock formations.
Charri猫re鈥檚 Into The Hollow encourages us to reflect on the circulation of the materials that are now melted into the stones as well as the relevance of deep mining as a necessary process for their extraction. The source of these materials, the physical open pit mines, represent the locus for the ingredients that drive our communication and technological society, while physically also constituting a negative image or inversion of the Biblical Tower of Babel.
From today鈥檚 mine to tomorrow鈥檚 monuments.
These minerals are excavated at different locations around the world, then shipped to countries like India, China or the United States to be assembled into technological devices, a process that may be considered a cultural crystallization of a globalized production scheme. Materials sourced from various geographies are brought together in physical objects by which we are all digitally connected.
When these become outdated they are sent to e-waste sites, where they are handpicked and separated in order to fuel more technology, thus re-entering the circulation process. Charri猫re interrupts this recycling flow by prematurely transmuting these delicate devices. Through this forcible intervention, he initiates a geo-artistic reflection on our digital consumer culture, a 鈥榞eo-reset鈥�: back to the future.
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