Unrealised Project No. 2.
Grey Blob, 2010.
‘Did you know that our planet is in imminent danger of being devoured by a giant grey blob? ...The world-consuming “grey goo” would actually be an uncontrollable mass of self-replicating, molecular-sized robots called nomachines that feed on organic matter and reproduce at a rate fast enough to blanket the Earth within two days.’1
The proposal is to make a wall work which follows on from Nedko Solakov’s The Yellow Blob Story (1997) where the Bulgarian artist had a yellow blob painted by gallery workers on the wall of the gallery, adding the text “I ordered this yellow blob from the exhibition assistants but later on I completely forgot the reason for this.” Solakov’s practice engages with notions of the absurd, arcane, broken utopias, skepticism and failure as a metaphor of human existence. The work grey blob extends this to the failure of artistic endevour itself. John O’Reilly, writing on Martin Creed asks in this context ‘How do you communicate nothing? How many different ways can you communicate nothing?’2 Accordingly, grey blob “…makes no statement whatsoever…” it “ ...lead(s) to nothing meaningful…” as Gerhard Richter said in the 1970s when he embarked on a series of grey monochrome paintings, here invoking the failure of painterly abstraction of the 60s and 70s.
grey blob refers to ‘a hypothetical end-of-the-world event involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all living matter on Earth while building more of themselves (ecophagy). The term is usually used in a science fiction context. In a worst-case scenario, all of the matter in the universe could be turned into goo - a large mass of goo.replicating nanomachines lacking large-scale structure, killing the universe’s inhabitants. The disaster is posited to result from an accidental mutation in a self-replicating nanomachine used for other purposes, or possibly from a deliberate doomsday device.’3
1Nicholas Frank, Paper Thin and Maximinimalist: Minimalism and its Legacy, March, 2007. http://www3.uwm.edu/arts/inova/minimalism/pdfs/MinimalismEssay.pdf (accessed 26 September 2010. Frank suggests that the term was coined by Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation (1986). 2John O’Reilly, http://www.martincreed.com/words/johnoreilly.html, 1995. 3http://www.associatepublisher.com/e/g/gr/greygoo.htm, accessed 26 September, 2010.
Unrealised Project No. 2.
Grey Blob, 2010.
‘Did you know that our planet is in imminent danger of being devoured by a giant grey blob? ...The world-consuming “grey goo” would actually be an uncontrollable mass of self-replicating, molecular-sized robots called nomachines that feed on organic matter and reproduce at a rate fast enough to blanket the Earth within two days.’1
The proposal is to make a wall work which follows on from Nedko Solakov’s The Yellow Blob Story (1997) where the Bulgarian artist had a yellow blob painted by gallery workers on the wall of the gallery, adding the text “I ordered this yellow blob from the exhibition assistants but later on I completely forgot the reason for this.” Solakov’s practice engages with notions of the absurd, arcane, broken utopias, skepticism and failure as a metaphor of human existence. The work grey blob extends this to the failure of artistic endevour itself. John O’Reilly, writing on Martin Creed asks in this context ‘How do you communicate nothing? How many different ways can you communicate nothing?’2 Accordingly, grey blob “…makes no statement whatsoever…” it “ ...lead(s) to nothing meaningful…” as Gerhard Richter said in the 1970s when he embarked on a series of grey monochrome paintings, here invoking the failure of painterly abstraction of the 60s and 70s.
grey blob refers to ‘a hypothetical end-of-the-world event involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all living matter on Earth while building more of themselves (ecophagy). The term is usually used in a science fiction context. In a worst-case scenario, all of the matter in the universe could be turned into goo - a large mass of goo.replicating nanomachines lacking large-scale structure, killing the universe’s inhabitants. The disaster is posited to result from an accidental mutation in a self-replicating nanomachine used for other purposes, or possibly from a deliberate doomsday device.’3
1Nicholas Frank, Paper Thin and Maximinimalist: Minimalism and its Legacy, March, 2007. http://www3.uwm.edu/arts/inova/minimalism/pdfs/MinimalismEssay.pdf (accessed 26 September 2010. Frank suggests that the term was coined by Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation (1986). 2John O’Reilly, http://www.martincreed.com/words/johnoreilly.html, 1995. 3http://www.associatepublisher.com/e/g/gr/greygoo.htm, accessed 26 September, 2010.