|
Steve Claydon and Neil Chapman
The Sum of the Earth
Private View: Thurs 5 Sept 2002
Fri 6 Sept - Sun 29 Sept
Opening hours: Fri - Sun 2-6
Neil Chapman and Steven Claydons’ undertaking
is as systematic as it is
random. As particular as it is general. It proceeds on the assumption
that
much scientific endeavour has its origin in accident, indeed, that
flaws and
mutations are as essential for evolution as they are for our comprehension
of it. Life is based upon an aberration. There is not an object
on Earth
that does not point to this fact, but the most extrovert objects
are those
that have been manufactured; Specialised objects, that fit succinctly
into
their own systems but seem ludicrous when applied or adapted for
use in
others. It is this un-concealment, this disparity, which Chapman
and Claydon
have chosen to explore. The fact that even specialised objects are
perfectly
adaptable, points more to a flaw in thinking than to a flaw in the
things
themselves. All objects are equal and interchangeable according
to the
sovereignty of the order that intercepts them.
In light of this ‘The Sum of the Earth’ engages a speculative
construction
to allow the manufacture of objects (in this case a broad swathe
of things
from silicon masks based on found photographs or a consciously appropriated
concert of cinematic images to the replication of existing objects
through
quite alien forms of fabrication) to assume their most flagrant
and
lascivious form. As such the works in this exhibition have an almost
sacramental quality. Like the physical germs of an as yet unknown
teleology
whose foundations will most certainly be scientific, but only in
as much as
they disprove the conventions upon which uniform and rational thinking
is
based.
P.A.C.
SCUM OF THE EARTH
'Strange events permit themselves the luxury
of occurring.'
Charlie Chan
One cannot propose the chain of development that would lead to intelligence
in colonies of scum. But assuming the end result to have been reached,
one can at least note some of the conditions that would need to
be met. The extreme vulnerability of an ephemeral scum means that
intelligent scum must encapsulate themselves in a way affording
it mechanical and thermal protection from the environment. We can
see that the human brain is a convoluted assembly of cells distributed
in layers something like a silk sheet stuffed into a bone bag. We
would expect the scum to find a way of rolling itself and its substrate
into a ball and acquiring a protective coat. Perhaps this ball would
be about as big as a human head but the contents, if evolved from
a monolayer of unicellular organisms, would not be an individual
as we understand the word, but rather a whole tribe.
Because of the modest abilities of unicellular creatures, cooperation
and specialisation would be required on an intimate scale which
proximity would facilitate. In the course of time the cells on duty
at the mouth of the bag might be the only ones to retain sensitivity
to the light. These sentry cells would evolve into eyes if circumstances
so dictated. It does not seem implausible that originally unicellular
individuals could specialise so as to perform the functions of different
tissues and organs. Slime moulds do it all the time. Free swimming
myxomycetes come together in numbers and fuse into a single slug.
Steve Claydon and Neil Chapman 2002
back
|
