13/4/2007
Torsten Slama
Hotel, London
Illustrated Visions Of The Future for the Survival and Maintenance of Monuments dedicated to the Memory of Humankind. The works comprise: The House of the Geomant, The Abandoned Transonic Wind Tunnel, The Wilhelm Reich Cryogenic Institute, etc.
Illustrated Visions Of The Future
Vision 1: The House of the Geomant
This house is located in the closest possible proximity to a very special rock which
functions as a natural accumulator of orgone energy. The house is partially embedded
in the rock, and so partakes in its benign effluvium. The geomant lies dead in the
cellar of his house, and does not decay nor rot due to the rock's effluvium. Two
monkeys live on that rock and mock the passing horses.
Vision 2: The Abandoned Transonic Wind Tunnel
The Transonic Wind Tunnel is a testing laboratory for supersonic planes. No testing
is taking place anymore. The horses who roam the surrounding flatlands find this
building a favourite meeting place. The cat, who had been the pet of the deceased
owner of the Transonic Wind Tunnel, left to her own devices, begot kittens without
being inseminated. The kittens are playfully using the large flat area of the roof
of the wind tunnel as their playground.
Vision 3: The Wilhelm Reich Cryogenic Institute
The cold store harbours the dead bodies of mighty fathers. The mighty fathers
believe that they are still potentially alive, but later findings proved that the
method of cryogenics, even when the cryogenic tanks are combined with orgone
accumulators, does not preserve the potentiality of life, but merely deep freezes
the dead bodies. These findings occurred after the death of the mighty fathers. The
team of highly intelligent trained dolphins who came up with these findings issued a
recommendation that the Institute should be kept in working condition and a wise owl
and a sow with seven piglets should guard it in case the mighty fathers might still
find it possible to rise again and work their revenge on a world which betrayed
them.
Vision 4: The Secret Missile Silo
The deserted silo stands in a rock-strewn barren landscape. It is a former chemical
factory which now holds a long range missile with a nuclear warhead. Due to
radioactive leakage the immediate surroundings of the silo are contaminated, and
pose a severe health hazard to all kinds of organisms. The silo is not known, and
its location is unknown, because it is forgotten. Whoever enters the desert and
proceeds far enough to see the secret missile silo, and feel the effects of the
radiation, is not likely to return.
Vision 5: The Father Institute
The Father Institute serves as a lone monument of refuge for the straying fatherless
children who no longer roam the planet. The fatherless child is not to be trusted,
and forever homeless. If it ever were to finally find the father institute, the
waiting father image in the entrance would unfailingly send it away again. The
mother is a forlorn black bird on the roof. The father has a pair of mighty
mechanized testicles.
Vision 6: The Herbert Bayer Cigarette Kiosk
The cigarette is a phallic symbol of childish oral fixation, and yet a source of
dignity. It is both; a symbol of the sex urge, and of Thanathos, the death urge. The
cigarette shaped chimney, a hollow tube, serves as a monument and a memorial, as a
warning to future civilisations. A very strong gorilla guards the Kiosk against acts
of disrespect.
These are the gardens where animals play;
Humans, the evil ones, have gone away.
Their symbols of progress will never decay;
Protected by the COD they will eternally stay.
Opening april 14, 2007
Hotel
53 Old Bethnal Green Road - London
Thursday - Sunday 12.00 - 6:00PM