Peripatetic, kinetic installation, 2018

Venelin Shurelov (Bulgaria)

A metal construction with an electric motor is set in perpetual motion. It is an anthropomorphic figure, a hybrid between human and animal. The figure seems to be half-immersed in a black liquid, in a petroleum product.

Peripatetic is the protagonist in a contemplative chamber performance. It is an element of an automated performative mechanism that partly carries a certain romantic aura of the walking poets, partly the idea of dependence upon natural resources, the vulnerability of ecological cataclysms, the obsession with raw materials, the thirst for oil. I have built a system in which each element is an actor dependent upon others towards the creation of common sense. Technological discourse is an apology of mass culture and as such it is a discourse of desire and ecstasy. The integrity of the human and the world around him is reduced solely to the level of consumption, enjoyment, adrenaline, electronic continuation of the body, biological continuation of the machine, exchange of information, and modernization. Another point of view on technological discourse is the ironic and parodic one. It is the reason for the creation of analytic critique or the subversion of technology as defining of mass or dominant culture.

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