Note: the following is part of Glasstire’s series of short videos, Five-Minute Tours, for which commercial galleries, museums, nonprofits and artist-run spaces across the state of Texas send us video walk-throughs of their current exhibitions. This will continue while the coronavirus situation hinders public access to exhibitions. Let’s get your show in front of an audience.
See other Five-Minute Tours here.
Hillerbrand+Magsamen, Kirk Lynn, and Peter Stopschinski: 147 Devices for Integrated Principles at Big Medium, Austin. Dates: January 16 – February 27, 2021.
Via Big Medium:
“Rooted in our society’s ever-growing desire to exercise control over our lives through various devices, 147 Devices for Integrated Principles is informed by the artists’ experiences during Hurricane Harvey. Prior to the storm, the artists were confronted with a need to prepare a ‘hurricane box’ with devices such as batteries, canned food, toilet paper, and bottled water. As the hurricane passed, the water receded, and their lives started to return to normal, they realized that it was actually not returning to ‘normal’ – that the feeling of being overwhelmed by many external forces still existed. Not only was it the stress of a natural disaster, but also, divisive politics, economic pressures, and concerns with the aging of elderly parents, that brought Hillerbrand+Magsamen the idea to invent new devices for more intimate and personal problems. They turned to the concept of homo faber, or the notion that human beings can control their fate and their environment through tools. This turn of the century idea, a response to the Industrial Revolution, is as applicable today as it was then. Once again, our culture is faced with a new wave of technology that can either help us with our problems or exacerbate them.”
