Reflections on NeoPorkopolis

Keith Skogstrom's Skate, 2008 is a bizarre array of wood which includes a ramp, pulley, sliding cabinet doors and a roller skate. Upon pulling the doors inward or outward, a series of levers and gears moves the central ramp, see-sawing it to its opposite side. This causes the roller-skate to slide to the opposite end of the see-saw. It first struck me as completely purposeless, the elaborate contrivance excessive in terms of materials and efficiency. For example, it would be easier to simply reach one's hand down and lift the see-saw mechanism than to operate the complex device. The device and similar ones to it in the exhibition room became a form of play, and I had found myself enjoying their whimsical qualities. But why?
Today, technology and the machine have a level of complication which is incomprehensible save to the specialists. The machine confronts us no longer as a visible, comprehensible system of pulleys like a cistern, catapult or drawbridge might have to an ancient or medieval eye (though this may be my limited view of past consciousness). The complications of the modern machine's workings are impenetrable. This has resulted in all sorts of mystifications: science fiction writers fantasize that they become bearers of consciousness through complicated minutiae while philosophers reverse this and imagine that we are, in fact, merely machines inhabited by a ghost. Recently Japan's enormous fetish culture has created its ultimate achievement in a robotic 'woman,' a word I place in quotes so as not to offend the living women which it does not resemble, save outwardly. Worse, as people pass more and more daily time before the computer - the ultimate machine - it has usurped social activities, play, language and arguably thinking itself. With all our activities codified neatly within the frame of technology, we have come to imitate the machine (not vice-versa as the aforementioned Japanese contrivance would make us believe).
This artist's work could not have existed a millennia ago (apart from the obvious limits to what constitutes art at that time), because the ancient human being would have been perturbed by the uselessness of the object and its inefficiency. It is today, with the machine-become-enigma, that makes us delight in technology that is visibly comprehensive. Their inutility counters the constant, even unhappy surroundings of semi-necessary technological objects. Their main material, wood, lends the works a blatantly vulnerable quality, unlike the steel and aluminum used for similar mechanisms. And the sculptures' predominant use of human power to generate their activity gives the user the sense that its operation in no way impinges negatively upon the environment. In essence, it is the reverse of the everyday, contemporary technological experience, and therein lies its appeal. It is no wonder that children enjoy them, whereas an adult, habitually reticent before both mechanical contraptions and art, is cautious.
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At first, Gavin Price Fuller's sculpture-trays struck me as anonymous, as they are made of steel and monocolored. Arrayed upon a former cafeteria's sliding rack at the CCAC installation site, they appeared as objects used to serve food, seamlessly a part of the display. In fact, the artist's goal was precisely this appearance. But the 'food' of the sculpture is an amorphous, ceramic, plastic-like object of a somewhat globular, organic appearance. Each tray held one of these objects, brightly coloured and hence in contrast to the monochrome tray and utensils. Some utensils recall medical tools. The 'consumable' element gives the appearance of some part of an animal, although unidentifiable. Note too that the artist's compositions are well-thought, drawing upon a minimalist aesthetic.
These works, like Skogstrom's sculptures, speak of the experience of contemporary humanity; here, before the very objects we consume. Meat, for example, is often displayed and packaged (and dyed) to appear other than its origin. A McNugget is recognizable as chicken thanks to our social upbringing, but to someone ignorant of our world it may well appear like something of the reverse of its function. Genetic modification, hormones and chemical feeding further modify our food supply, so that we may find the appearance of food recognizable while its composition is not. A White Castle hamburger's square geometrical form at least implicates the artificiality of the process of its production. Within such a culture, Fuller's artwork represents an authentic display of our diet. It should be a little disquieting.

- A.C. Frabetti