Peak Oil

Genetologic Research 28/08/2009 14:20

Maarten Vanden Eynde
Oil Peak, 2006

Oil Peak was produced during the third Enough Room for Space (ERforS) project in Tbilisi, Georgia where the most severe protests since the Rose revolution were taking place. In 2003 the new Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili called back his fellow country men, who fled Georgia in the past decades, to come and help rebuild the once prosperous and wealthy country into a modern western democracy. ERforS decided to respond to this call as well and check out how a new democracy was being introduced or rather implanted and what the side-effects are of such an enormous political and sociological shift. Ten ‘oil eruptions’ were planted on several locations throughout the city. In front of the parliament it caused a surprising commotion as the protesting crowd appropriated the work as a ‘black rose’, symbolizing the failure of the Rose revolution.

Oil Peak, 2008

Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. The concept is based on the observed production rates of individual oil wells, and the combined production rate of a field of related oil wells. According to Mathew Simmons, author of Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, “…peaking is one of these fuzzy events that you only know clearly when you see it through a rear view mirror, and by then an alternate resolution is generally too late.” Currently there is no consensus on whether Peak oil occurred already, or is still to come.

The Invisible Line

Genetologic Research 25/08/2009 22:52

Gordon Matta-Clark
Splitting, 1974

Gordon Matta-Clark (1943 1978) was an American artist best known for his site-specific artworks he made in the 1970s. He is famous for his “building cuts,” a series of works in abandoned buildings in which he variously removed sections of floors, ceilings, and walls. Over a period of about three months in 1974, he made two parallel vertical cuts straight through the middle of a nondescript two-story suburban house in Englewood, New Jersey, removing the material left between the cuts as well as some of the foundation blocks on which the house stood so that one half slightly tilted away from the other, creating a wedge-shaped aperture between them.

Doris Salcedo
Shibboleth, 2007

As the very first representative of a non-European tradition to be commissioned by the Tate Modern Unilever Series, Doris Salcedo has chosen an understated technique: that of inscribing into the ground of the Turbine Hall. The scar that begins like a thin, almost invisible line, at the main entrance gradually becomes a chasm in the earth at the far end of the former power station. This earthquake-like insertion evokes the brokenness and separateness of the post-colonial cultures of a non-white, non-European legacy. The installation is a metonymy for the term absence an absence that negates the space of post-colonial peoples. The construction of a ‘negative space’, or emptied out space, corresponds to the trajectory of the history of post-colonialism. It is in Shibboleth (2007), where space is occupied silently and discreetly, not via a sense of domination or empowerment, that this trajectory can be traced.

An ‘imaginative landscape’ is at work in the heart of what Salcedo states is a monument to a European and modernist tradition of Western art; the Tate Modern. Shibboleth disrupts the Western view of landscape that creates a sense of things being in place and emphasises ‘a visual scape in which the observer stands back and distances himself or herself from the thing observed.’ In reversing the role of the viewer as not only witness but accomplice in an act of silence, Shibboleth proposes a different take on the role of Western art practice and traditions of art: here the earth opens up under the viewers’ feet, evoking an earthquake, an eruption of space, time and place. The view is negated by its downward spiralling motion, bringing to mind a story in Borges’ Labyrinths; negativity has become one with the ground, forcing a glance into an abyss that is disquieting in its silence.

- Abstract from a text by Stella Baraklianou, 2008

Maarten Vanden Eynde
Restauration du Lac de Montbel, 2003

Maarten Vanden Eynde restauration

When Faith Moves Mountains

Genetologic Research 25/08/2009 17:19

Francis Alys (in collaboration with Rafael Ortega and Cuauhtémoc Medina)
When faith moves mountains, 2002

On April 11th 2002, 500 voluntiers were called in order to form a line to move a sand dune situated in the surroundings of the city of Lima. This human comb progressed pushing forward a certain quantity of sand with shovels in order to move the dune from its original position. The actual displacement was of an infinitesimal proportion, but not its metaphorical resonance.

Maasvlakte 2, Rotterdam, NL (2008 - 2033)

© Michiel van Raaij

New land is being created to extend the port of Rotterdam in The Netherlands. After an international call for tenders the contracting consortium PUMA (Project Uitbreiding Maasvlakte) was contracted to build the first sites. PUMA is a consortium consisting of Koninklijke Boskalis Westminster NV and Van Oord NV, notoriously known for The Palm Islands and The World in Dubia, and will deliver the first sites for the first customers in 2013.
The vital statistics of Maasvlakte 2 provide a picture of the scale of the project. The site will cover a total area of around 2,000 hectares, half of which will be for industrial sites. Division between the main areas of activities includes 630 hectares for container storage and throughput (with a total container handling capacity of 17 million teu annually), 190 hectares for the chemicals industries and 180 hectares for distribution. The infrastructure includes 13 km of roads, 14 km of rail lines and 13 km of quay walls. The construction of the new land will require a total of 365m m³ of sand over the whole project period (up to 2033), 240m m³ of which will be for the first phase of construction due to be completed in 2013. There will be 10.8 km of sea defences and the access channel for shipping will be 10 nautical miles long with a depth of up to 20m, a 600m wide port entrance and 700m wide turning basin. The sky is the limit…

Virgin Island, 2009
© Marjolijn Dijkman

The Possibility of a Mountain

Genetologic Research 23/08/2009 15:07

Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukács
Manifest Destiny, 2009
Serie of silkscreens, 120 x80 cm.

In the silk-screens one sees an imaginary sky that is silkscreened over photographs of a barren desert where some of the Mars mobiles have been tested. In these works Broersen & Lukacs investigate the notion close up and distance, of horizon and the frontier, in relationship to the American tradition of the sublime landscape.

James Turell
Roden Crater, 1979 - 2011

Roden Crater is an extinct volcano crater northeast of Flagstaff, Arizona. Artist James Turrell purchased the 400,000 year old, 3 km wide crater in 1979 and has been transforming it into a massive naked-eye observatory, designed specifically for the viewing of celestial phenomena. He stated that he plans to open the crater for public viewing in 2011.

TIMES-ONLINE: Man-made volcanoes may cool Earth
August 30, 2009

THE Royal Society is backing research into simulated volcanic eruptions, spraying millions of tons of dust into the air, in an attempt to stave off climate change. The intervention by the Royal Society comes amid tension ahead of the United Nations-sponsored climate talks in Copenhagen in December 2009 to agree global cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. Preliminary discussions have gone so badly that many scientists believe geo-engineering will be needed as a plan B.

The interest in so-called aerosols is linked to the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. The explosion blasted up to 20m tons of tiny sulphur particles into the air, cooling the planet by about 0.5C before they fell back to earth. The Royal Society is Britains premier science institution and its decision to take geo-engineering seriously is a measure of the desperation felt by scientists about climate change.

Based on a text by Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor of The Times.

Neutral Bunkers

Genetologic Research 22/08/2009 18:19

Leo Fabrizio
Swiss Bunkers, 1999-2004

Switzerland is riddled with hidden and disguised military installations. What appeared to be a rock face in a lay-by beside the road were actually steel and concrete doors painted like rock. A five years study by, questioning landscape and identity. Is the territory surrounding us influencing our identity? What happens then when this territory, reputed to be wild and pure, is in fact completely manipulated by humans?

‘After the cold war ended many of the bunkers became obsolete. The tendency is to forget them or even to renounce them, my approach on the contrary, aims to expose them from a new angle. This approach has led me to discover a great number of bunkers, some in remote areas, sometimes difficultly accessible, covering the whole of the Swiss territory. The relations between these basic shaped bunkers and the often-sumptuous landscape surrounds them became an essential part of the study. I looked for the most spectacular bunkers, notable for their camouflage devices, true theatre scenery made with the utmost care. A quality indeed fully Swiss.’ - Leo Fabrizio -

Neutral Bunkers

Genetologic Research 22/08/2009 18:19

Leo Fabrizio
Swiss Bunkers, 1999-2004

Ocean Earth

Genetologic Research 22/08/2009 17:51

Peter Fend
Ocean Earth Construction and Development Corporation, 1980

The aim of the Ocean Earth Construction and Development Corporation is research on alternative energy sources. They use satellite imaging to monitor and analyze global ecological and geopolitical hot-spots, largely for media clients. Considering the world a living earthwork, ecological aspects are linked to and interconnected with artistic aspects. Ocean Earth was conceived as an instrument for implementing the goals of the environmental art movement, directly building upon the ideas of artists such as Joseph Beuys, Robert Smithson and Gordon Matta-Clark. Through inter-disciplinary collaborations and by connecting ecological imperatives with experimental new technologies, Fend asks How far can art go? in drawing attention to a belief that artistic research can generate productive dialogue about global ecological problems and that it can be used to develop effective solutions.

Ocean Earth

Genetologic Research 22/08/2009 17:51

Peter Fend
Ocean Earth Construction and Development Corporation, 1980

The aim of the Ocean Earth Construction and Development Corporation is research on alternative energy sources. They use satellite imaging to monitor and analyze global ecological and geopolitical hot-spots, largely for media clients. Considering the world a living earthwork, ecological aspects are linked to and interconnected with artistic aspects. Ocean Earth was conceived as an instrument for implementing the goals of the environmental art movement, directly building upon the ideas of artists such as Joseph Beuys, Robert Smithson and Gordon Matta-Clark. Through inter-disciplinary collaborations and by connecting ecological imperatives with experimental new technologies, Fend asks How far can art go?, in drawing attention to a belief that artistic research can generate productive dialogue about global ecological problems and that it can be used to develop effective solutions.

Local Fuel Production - Afganistan Iran Holland, 2009

Maquette of Afganistan basin as skatepark

Systematic Landscapes

Genetologic Research 02/08/2009 19:02

Pierre Huyghe
Timekeeper, 1999.

Installation view of a hole revealing wall painting of successive exhibition layers, 20 cm in diameter at the Viennese Secession. Like A geographical cross-section, Timekeeper uncovers and shows the successive layers left behind by previous actions (wall paintings) on the walls of the Wiener Secession. Just as the rings of a tree tell its history. Timekeeper is a caption that tells the story of its location. It allows the work of different artists to coexist. A kind of retrospective and group exhibition. 2003

“Its very difficult to say whats poetic in my work because its not something mathematical. Its not a recipe. Theres no reason to have a recipe and say that Im going to be poetic. I never do that. Its rarely within the form itself. Its more in the process. If there is something poetic, its poetic in the procedure . . . in the way things are made.”
- Pierre Huyghe

Maya Lin
Atlas Landscape, 2006