Kal Spelletich
05 - 31 Aug 2010
KAL SPELLETICH
COSMICISM AND CONTEMPORARY FORESTRY
From Northern California
____________________________________________________________________
A technologically mutated organic hybrid to, of and for trees.
machines. robots. photographs.
August 05 - 31 2010
Opening: Thursday, August 5, 2010, 6-9PM
1. A bio-engineered permutation.
(a.) a deliberate attempt to cross two parents with desirable characteristics and incorporate said characters in next generations.
(b.) a synthesis of nature and technology
(c.) to produce an anomaly.
2. Deviant transmogrification.
(a.) post nature.
(b.) new species struggling for life.
(c.) an unholy marriage.
3. The Paradox of Technology.
(a.) It could save us. Can it save us?
(b.) It is killing us.
Our culture has an excruciatingly dangerous claim to have such complete understanding and command over nature that we can radically manipulate and re-engineer it with minimal risk to the natural systems that sustain us. How little control even the most ingenious among us have over the awesome, intricately interconnected natural forces with which we so casually meddle.
I want to save the world, or at least slow down its demise. I want to get back to what really matters. So, I thought, why not start in my own back yard?
It all reads like a Greek tragedy about human hubris; a political class eager to believe that nature has indeed been mastered. Sir Francis Bacon best encapsulated the ethos when he wrote in the 1623 De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum that nature is to be "put in constraint, molded, and made as it were new by art and the hand of man."
However, in his solo exhibit, Comicism and Contemporary Forestry from Northern California, Kal Spelletich’s hand defies Bacon’s ethos to suggest that in the struggle between large scale forces and the grand scheme of intergalactic existence, humans are no more significant than the insects crawling on trees.
We are being mastered by the forces of nature and “our” world is coming to an end. Trees don’t need our help, we need theirs. They replenish the environment with oxygen and filter pollution--nourishing us by their mere existence; they have the ultimate (more than anything humans may construct) capacity to heal. Trees will be the savior but only if we let them. As Spelletich’s work righteously exhibits, passively tying ourselves to the trunk of a 2,000 year old Sequoia is no longer the answer. Now, it’s all about mobilization. Dystopian and reverential, this exhibition is both an homage and a warning.
Spelletich’s Comicism and Contemporary Forestry from Northern California includes an actual 20 foot Monterey Pine tree robot covered with traditional healing herbs, photographs of 360' tall, 2000 year old Redwoods and Sequoias, Monterey Pines Pinus radiata (family Pinaceae) and Royal Palm trees (roystonea) and a machine/tree BB-Q designed to feed the masses.
Kal Spelletich received his MFA from the University of Texas at Austin and currently lives and works in San Francisco, California. Spelletich helped found SEEMEN, a collective of individuals who enjoy building extreme machines and robots that they allow their audience to operate. He is a notorious guerilla gardener and activist.
He has also worked with the legendary machine performance art group, Survival Research Laboratories.
Opening and closing nights will include homemade BB-Q compliments of the machine/tree BB-Q and the DJ stylings of only S.F., CA music by multiple California x-pats located in New York City.
Closing event: Saturday, 6-9 PM, August 28, 2010
COSMICISM AND CONTEMPORARY FORESTRY
From Northern California
____________________________________________________________________
A technologically mutated organic hybrid to, of and for trees.
machines. robots. photographs.
August 05 - 31 2010
Opening: Thursday, August 5, 2010, 6-9PM
1. A bio-engineered permutation.
(a.) a deliberate attempt to cross two parents with desirable characteristics and incorporate said characters in next generations.
(b.) a synthesis of nature and technology
(c.) to produce an anomaly.
2. Deviant transmogrification.
(a.) post nature.
(b.) new species struggling for life.
(c.) an unholy marriage.
3. The Paradox of Technology.
(a.) It could save us. Can it save us?
(b.) It is killing us.
Our culture has an excruciatingly dangerous claim to have such complete understanding and command over nature that we can radically manipulate and re-engineer it with minimal risk to the natural systems that sustain us. How little control even the most ingenious among us have over the awesome, intricately interconnected natural forces with which we so casually meddle.
I want to save the world, or at least slow down its demise. I want to get back to what really matters. So, I thought, why not start in my own back yard?
It all reads like a Greek tragedy about human hubris; a political class eager to believe that nature has indeed been mastered. Sir Francis Bacon best encapsulated the ethos when he wrote in the 1623 De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum that nature is to be "put in constraint, molded, and made as it were new by art and the hand of man."
However, in his solo exhibit, Comicism and Contemporary Forestry from Northern California, Kal Spelletich’s hand defies Bacon’s ethos to suggest that in the struggle between large scale forces and the grand scheme of intergalactic existence, humans are no more significant than the insects crawling on trees.
We are being mastered by the forces of nature and “our” world is coming to an end. Trees don’t need our help, we need theirs. They replenish the environment with oxygen and filter pollution--nourishing us by their mere existence; they have the ultimate (more than anything humans may construct) capacity to heal. Trees will be the savior but only if we let them. As Spelletich’s work righteously exhibits, passively tying ourselves to the trunk of a 2,000 year old Sequoia is no longer the answer. Now, it’s all about mobilization. Dystopian and reverential, this exhibition is both an homage and a warning.
Spelletich’s Comicism and Contemporary Forestry from Northern California includes an actual 20 foot Monterey Pine tree robot covered with traditional healing herbs, photographs of 360' tall, 2000 year old Redwoods and Sequoias, Monterey Pines Pinus radiata (family Pinaceae) and Royal Palm trees (roystonea) and a machine/tree BB-Q designed to feed the masses.
Kal Spelletich received his MFA from the University of Texas at Austin and currently lives and works in San Francisco, California. Spelletich helped found SEEMEN, a collective of individuals who enjoy building extreme machines and robots that they allow their audience to operate. He is a notorious guerilla gardener and activist.
He has also worked with the legendary machine performance art group, Survival Research Laboratories.
Opening and closing nights will include homemade BB-Q compliments of the machine/tree BB-Q and the DJ stylings of only S.F., CA music by multiple California x-pats located in New York City.
Closing event: Saturday, 6-9 PM, August 28, 2010