New Collages for The New Earth
A collection of collage drawings on show in Chicago at Public Works Gallery
AlterFutures is now called Studio Visit. We will still be focusing on ‘future of’ subjects and sharing conversations and snapshots from our speculative design and design fiction projects. We hope you enjoy the read!
This is our first SubStack newsletter, and we want to start by giving you a glimpse of some new work we have just completed, and explain the process behind it.
The New Earth Exhibition
A few months ago we were asked to participate in a group exhibition entitled The New Earth at Public Works gallery in Wicker Park, Chicago, that opened on September 2nd. The show’s rationale is that the artists’ involved are “fearlessly confronting the future” and that the show will “act as a testing ground for addressing the preeminent issues of a changing planet.” You can read the full curatorial statement here.
We are exhibiting a collection of new collage drawings depicting wearable technologies, that developed from the design process behind our ongoing Catalog for the Post-Human project. Catalog for the Post-Human, provokes conversations about the ethical and social dimensions of our technologically mediated futures, with particular focus on human enhancements technologies and the future of work.
The project uses the creation of a fictional organization that markets technology products towards contingent workers of the near future, as a means of satirizing the absurdities of our technologically mediated present. Previous iterations of the project include a trade show booth at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale and a vending machine with interactive interface, for the Designs for Different Futures exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2019) and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (2020).
The new collage drawings show individuals using a variety of enhancement prosthetics as a means of coping with the ongoing escalation of an algorithmically-driven productivity-culture.
For The New Earth we are showing six collages based on product ideas from our design process. The origins of these pieces go back to 2019 when we were developing ideas for the first three-dimensional iteration of the Catalog which became the vending machine piece for Designs for Different Futures. We both have a strong affinity with collage for various reasons. There are historical precedents we appreciate such as the work by Italian radical designers Superstudio. It is a wonderful way of visualizing ideas without getting sucked into time-consuming rendering processes.
The ad-hoc nature of selecting from a collection of cut-out components leaves lots of room for surprising discoveries, both aesthetic and conceptual. As we discussed ideas for speculative human-enhancement products our fictional organization might produce, collage was a direct and satisfying way of quickly giving them form.
The collage components we use come from a variety of sources. Some are parts of consumer products or cosmetics packaging from contemporary glossy magazines. Some are technical illustrations, either from 60s Popular Science or Popular Mechanics magazines, or from an old German encyclopedia. These are augmented with images of biological material taken from New Scientist or Wired magazines.
Rather than using all collage, as early pop artists such as Richard Hamilton did in his famous piece Just What is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, so Appealing, we decided to mix collaged components with hand-drawn faces. In this project we are trying to draw attention to the ways our productivity-oriented culture is using technologies to push people beyond reasonable limits. The assemblages of collaged components create unidentifiable technological devices which protrude from the noses, mouths or ears of the protagonists. By laying the hard, technological components and strange biological matter over the softly rendered human facial features, a dramatic contrast is created. Who are these people? What are these devices they are wearing? Are they using them consensual or not? The mixture of the collage technique with the hand drawing helps us create images that suggest an alienating post-human future.
One of the enjoyable aspects of this work for us is that each piece is created together.
[Jess], I do the hand drawings of the faces. Life drawing was something I was very fond of early in my education and it’s been great to return to that, although these models are from royalty-free images and not literally drawn from life.
[Tim] Once we have the line drawing we begin working with the collage pieces. We have a pre-cut supply of these, so the process is like a puzzle with an unknown conclusion. We try things out and see what “fits”, what each piece evokes and how it relates to the face. As well as considering what functions the pieces can evoke we’re also looking at the perspective of the collage pieces to try and create something that approximates the perspective of the drawing.
[Jess] We work on these for several days, leaving them and returning to them to try to improve them. When we’re happy, Tim applies an archival adhesive backing to each piece and sticks them down before embossing them with our studio stamp and framing them.
Works for sale
The collages are now for sale at Public Works Gallery as well as an exhibition poster/zine and T-shirt that both feature an image from the collection.
For up-to-date images of what we have been working on check out our instagram feed and if you’re just visiting here, consider subscribing for future updates.