Materiality Re-Mined; Deep Behind the Screen of a Cell Phone

Extraction: art on the edge of the abyss

“WE ARE IN A STATE OF EXCESS. WE ARE LIVING IN A SOCIETY OF EXCRESCENCE."

—JEAN BAUDRILLARD 

an installation by two artists, Catherine Richardson and Brooke Holve, that looks at the global impact on the environment from demands for the manufacture of our much coveted mobile phones .

Digging deep into the components of the cell phone, the artists  reveal connections between its “smartness,”  the mining industries and humans’ relationship with the earth.

See current list of participants for the wider scope of this project.

Press release;

Catherine and Brooke’s presentation, in unification with The Extraction Project,  

will show at The Seager/Gray Gallery in Mill Valley California, July 1-30th

Catherine’s process encompasses the mixing of disparate substances to discover textures and forms that she utilises in her “landscape” paintings. Her drawings describe land structure and geological terrain while evoking the business of mining and its marks on landscapes.

Her practice aims to locate places of disconnect between natural systems and geology and the vast underworld of mining and extracting in order for us to live in our ever increasing, technically-aided lives.

Clay mixes with hot thermal water.

 Phone Screen series;

Construction of the plexi-glass-facade structures are in the proportions of an I Phone.

“Commodities Trail” 1 & 2 These pieces have a screen printed image on Rives BFK paper sandwiched between aluminium plate and a clear perspex face secured by stainless steel hardware.

Imagery from prospecting mineral sources, mining potential and rubbings from lava rock is lazer cut into the plexiglass. .