What Once Was

Sculpture By The Sea, Bondi, 2013

Sandstone, 6 individual pieces up to 1.2m w x 75cm h x 12cm d.  Total area occupied 3.5 cm sq.

Each sculpture is an oversized replica of a recent technological device; an iPhone4S, iPod shuffle, iPad3, a magic mouse and Macbook Pro.  Each piece is installed sticking part way out of the ground like a headstone from a disused graveyard or debris from an ancient rubbish site.

I have chosen to work in sandstone (with old school hand tools to boot) due to it’s ancient character and historic symbolism. As opposed to the objects it represents the stone itself is millions of years old, used historically for headstones and iconic ‘Stone Age’ structures such as Stone Henge, the Aztec ruins, the Egyptian pyramids, temples and other places of worship.

With an interest in the human side of the digital revolution, this work questions how closely our life and identity have become connected to these devices, and what aspects of ourselves are lost in the process, both on a personal and social level.  It reminds us that whatever is cutting edge today will one day be just as ancient as the sandstone itself and forever a relic.

As the viewer stands amongst the technological totems there is a playfully menacing sense of a lost civilisation where past and future merge into the present.

Read more in the piece by Steve Dow in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Al the good photos (at the beginning of the album) were taken by a great photographer Stephane Michaux and the relatively dodgy ones by me!