Exhibition

Lewis Colburn: A Fountain for A Dark Future

10 Sep 2021 – 6 Nov 2021

Regular hours

Friday
11:00 – 17:00
Saturday
11:00 – 17:00
Wednesday
11:00 – 17:00
Thursday
11:00 – 17:00

Save Event: Lewis Colburn: A Fountain for A Dark Future

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Locust Projects

Miami
Florida, United States

Event map

New installation by Philadelphia-based artist Lewis Colburn. The exhibition opens to the public with a reception on Thursday, September 9 from 6-8pm, and is on view through November 6, 2021 Wednesdays-Saturdays from 11am-5pm. Admission is free.

About

Blending digital and manual making processes, robotic elements, and a series of water pumps, the massive, improvised fountain at the center of A Fountain for a Dark Future alludes to disruptive events on the human horizon such as sea level rise, automation, and the rise of authoritarianism. The fountain is a larger than life recreation of Umberto Boccioni’s iconic sculpture, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space of 1913 which captured the dynamism and energy of the modern world which fascinated the Italian Futurists. Futurists also harbored darker tendencies, celebrating war and destruction as “cleansing forces” which Colburn compares to the “move fast and break things” ideology expounded in contemporary Silicon Valley. Similarly, the artist sees the embrace of Mussolini by the Futurists as echoing the recent electoral successes of authoritarian right-wing ideology around the world.

Colburn’s recreation was first 3D modeled in CAD, allowing the artist to then carve molds from foam using a Computer Numeric Control (CNC) router. These molds were then used onsite to cast the monumental form from gypsum cement.

The massive sculpture, which resembles a blurred figure in motion, is surrounded by a complex scaffold of aluminum rods, upon which are mounted Arduino Braccio robot arms that reach out to repeatedly stroke and clean the sculpture. The feet of the sculpture rest in elevated interconnected plastic trays through which water circulates, creating a water feature reminiscent of public fountains. In this way the “cleansing forces” referenced by Futurist ideology are made not only literal, but automated, removing the human touch.

In the current moment of compounding and interconnected crises, the work suggests a sterile, atomized and inhuman future which may await us if we, collectively, allow these catastrophes to play out to their logical conclusions.

Exhibiting artistsToggle

Lewis Colburn

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