![\"Iain](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/aDSC_5622-web.jpg\")
Iain Ball. Portrait by Sam Hiscox<\/p>\n Iain Ball. Portrait by Sam Hiscox<\/p>\n
Iain Ball\u2019s multifaceted works explore ways to combat feelings of alienation and loss of identity caused by technology. Combining elements of science-fiction, corporate aesthetics and an astringent sculptural vocabulary, Ball\u2019s collection is one of seventeen to feature in Rare Earth at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art (TBA) Contemporary, Vienna.<\/p>\n
Possibly TBA\u2019s most ambitious shows to date, Rare Earth will display work based around each of the rare earth elements \u2013 17 chemical elements and members of the periodic table. Frequently used in high-tech electronics such as smartphones and even drones, the sourcing of these substances is often controversial since they are mainly mined in the Global South, where richer nations can exploit frail markets to their advantage.<\/p>\n
Previously, Ball has produced several sculptures and installations based around other elements of the periodic table for a series entitled \u201cEnergy Pangea \/ <\/i><\/b>Rare Earth Sculptures\u201d. Prior to his show at TBA, he tells Sleek how he is developing his ideas about the environment.<\/p>\n
![\"PHILIPS](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/29-web.jpg\")
PHILIPS 2013, 2010\/2014;
PHILIPS 2013 display kiosk exhibited as part of (!?), Curated by Alexander Benenson at IMPAKT Festival, Utrecht 2014. Images courtesy of Iain Ball<\/p>\n
What was the impulse behind \u201cEnergy Pangea\/Rare Earth Sculpture Project\u201d??<\/b><\/p>\n
It began in late-2010 as an umbrella term to encompass a new set of works that I had begun to focus on, which represented a shift in my attention away from the very goth and macabre technological\/primitivist ideas that were inherent in earlier projects such as \u201cOld Earth Objects\u201d\u00a0(2010) and \u201cPOST.CONSUMER.CULT\u201d\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0(2010).\u00a0<\/p>\n
As such, I wanted \u201cEnergy Pangea\u201d to be the antithesis of these projects. This is why it focuses on optimistic ways of rethinking the environment and the possibilities of free energy rather than dystopian geopolitical crises and environmental catastrophe that characterised the preceding projects. Thereafter, the \u201cRare Earth Sculpture Project\u201d developed within<\/i> the \u201cEnergy Pangea\u201d project. I used the list of rare earth elements as structure and began developing a sculptural system for each rare earth element. In this sense, it\u2019s sculptural in that it explores the amorphous qualities of the way that things are networked together, while also presenting a central object. This object is then used to bind together all of the narratives and content; it also functions engaging and creating further connections and adaptations, too.<\/p>\n
![\"Untitled](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/27-web.jpg\")
Untitled Image composition from POST.CONSUMER.CULT, 2010. Images courtesy of Iain Ball<\/p>\n
Were there any technical barriers in creating sculptures based around such an obscure subject?<\/b><\/p>\n
Not really. \u00a0It was no different from deciding to make a series of large canvases or glazed ceramic objects. The medium or subject has particular qualities that I am always interested in exploring. With this project, however, I was particularly interested in creating seemingly unrelated associations to each rare earth element as a kind of parody and reversal of research practices. Instead of working from an empirical hypothesis my point of departure is creative intuition.<\/p>\n
On the face of it, engaging with a specific set of materials seems like a straightforward agenda. And yet, your works from this are quite funny and playful. Why is this? And what\u2019s the function of science and fiction in the project?<\/b><\/p>\n
Well, my aim with that series is to draw attention to the weird reality we now inhabit, and therefore to the potential for imagining a way out of the next crisis or disaster. This\u00a0might sound quite off-the-wall, but the point is that technology often disrupts the way in which we previously considered the world.<\/p>\n
For example, while making \u201cNeodymium\u201d in 2011, I was fascinated by a Buddhist symbol called Maitreya or \u201cSolar Cross\u201d. I also wanted to use a lizard but I wasn\u2019t sure how or why, but I found a way to fit both of them in. However, I later discovered that Neodymium is actually used in some reptile lamps, and that sculpture I had created contained Neodymium. These kind of strange coincidences are kind of like the unpredictable outcomes of geopolitics within which rare earths exist.<\/p>\n
Conversely, with \u201cEuropium\u201d from 2014 I had a longstanding idea to create a sculpture in an artificial woodland in Devon, UK. Nonetheless, after I started it, I discovered that the woodland was being used for biomass production. Following that, I read an article about the Koli Forum in Finland who were saying that biomass was the saviour of the European sustainable economy. Indeed, the rare element Europium is used in the production of Euro banknotes. Everything seems to be connected in such strange ways, and I like to think of all of these events as interacting together chaotically, like a vortex with outcomes and causalities we can never fully measure. Making a sculpture in which these narratives become manifest is one way of materialising and transducing these energies, tensions and interrelationships while also creating the conditions for the project to grow and adapt and make new connections.<\/p>\n
![\"(Rare](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/23-web.jpg\")
(Rare Earth Sculptures) NEODYMIUM, (detail), 2011; Small Maitreya Solar Cross. Images courtesy of Iain Ball<\/p>\n
What is the Centre for Youth Consciousness?<\/b><\/p>\n
It\u2019s something I began last year with the intention of integrating it into the \u201cEnergy Pangea\/Rare Earth Sculpture Project.\u201d The idea was that the organisation wouldn\u2019t really exist but that it would lend legitimacy to the sculptures through contextual association \u2013 kind of a fictional endorsement. However, in doing so, it could potentially become an actual working organisation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The \u201cLanthanum\u201d sculpture was the first to be developed to align itself to the Centre for Youth Consciousness. It\u2019s in part a critique of how the art world fetishises and exploits ideas of youth for its own gain, and how the market spends so much time figuring out what to sell to young people. Originally, the \u201cLanthanum\u201d sculpture was actually launched as a rotating decorative table sculpture in a Mozzarella Bar in Canary Wharf, London. I\u2019ve also considered exhibiting it in the back of a Toyota Prius. What I wanted to do with this piece is create a sense of confusion about whether the sculpture is a gimmicky corporate venture, a completely out of touch failure or a serious piece of research. In fact, my current focus is on ways to continue creating confusion and disinformation but in a way that\u2019s similar manner to the leaked GCHQ document \u201cThe Art of Deception: Training for a New Generation of Online Covert Operations.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n
Why is there so much corporate language and branding used in the texts that accompany the sculptures in this series?<\/b><\/p>\n
Branding is ubiquitous, whether it\u2019s for an artificial forest, a cult, an apartment block, some Oscar Murillo paintings or some Instagram photos. Some of the language I use in the accompanying texts certainly is corporate, I also think it reads like conspiracy theory spiel too. Some of it is also instructional in that it outlines the components of the sculptural system and how they interrelate symbiotically.<\/p>\n
With the last two projects, \u201cEuropium\u201d and \u201cLanthanum\u201d I have altered and shifted the function of the text so it\u2019s become weirder, more affective and lucid. Corporate language can seem certain,, especially since it is often appropriated from Eastern and New Age philosophy, usually via the self-help and Mindfulness movements. For me, this is a useful technique when I\u2019m trying to make something so arbitrary sound convincing and significant. It\u2019s also a reflection of how I see the world, what governs exchange and how value is created. As such, I\u2019m trying to relate to the world by accepting all of those things too, so that when you see the sculptures, there\u2019s this feeling that someone\u2019s pitching a hot new product to you that\u2019s fundamentally going to change your perception.<\/p>\n
![\"(Rare](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/10-web.jpg\")
(Rare Earth Sculptures) THULIUM, 2013, puma punku H-block replica, “BX” 1,000 MW blue laser system, handheld burial accessories x3, liquid melatonin sublingual, organic banana, hydrilla verticillata, clear ice block, aluminium, laser cut acrylic. Exhibited at Perfect Present (perfectpresent.dk), Copenhagen, Denmark 2013. Images courtesy of Iain Ball<\/p>\n
How is the environmental impact of rare earth mining addressed through your sculptures?<\/b><\/p>\n
In different ways. In \u201cPromethium\u201d from 2012, for example, I posited a hypothetical scenario where the collective psyche of the Winklevoss Twins, who were early investors in Facebook, was manifested as an untapped resource and materialised as an exoplanet full of vast promethium deposits. The idea that this planet could be out there somewhere in the universe, entangled with the strange energy given off by the Winklevoss Twins, was interwoven into the materiality of the sculpture, which used a trail camera, security spikes and an RFID transponder as catalysts.<\/p>\n
Comparatively, \u201cDysprosium\u201d (2011) took a much more direct approach. A mass of fabrics sewn together on a transportable canvas, it was designed to be carried through Akbastau, a region in South Kazakhstan. In this region, Toshiba has formed a partnership with Kazatomprom, a state-owned nuclear holding company, to recover the rare earth by-products of its uranium extraction process. In its relationship with the geography and the partnership with Toshiba and Kazatomprom, The sculpture, \u00a0is intended to work as a piece of speculative \u201cearth acupuncture\u201d by focusing energy and attention into the region.<\/p>\n
What philosophers, or recent schools of thought, do you find most compelling? Why?<\/b><\/p>\n
Reza Negrestani\u2019s \u201cCyclonopedia\u201d had a big influence on the \u201cNeodymium\u201d sculpture. Elsewhere, Timothy Morton\u2019s \u201cDark Ecology\u201d and \u201cHyperobjects\u201d, \u00a0Bruno Latour\u2019s \u201cactor network theory\u201d, Benjamin Bratton\u2019s \u201cThe Stack\u201d and \u201cCloud Medievalism\u201d have all provided food for thought. Peter Krapp\u2019s lecture at Bratton\u2019s Center for Design and Geopolitics at Calit2 in 2011 was also a basis for developing the theoretical groundwork for my project for the rare earth element Thulium.\u00a0 Dr. Robert E. Ryan\u2019s book on Shamanism and Jungian Psychology have been really inspiring too , as have the writing of the mystic philosopher Rene Guenon.<\/p>\n
![\"(Rare](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/13-web.jpg\")
(Rare Earth Sculptures) PROMETHIUM, 2012
Bushnell\u00ae Bone Collector\u2122 Trophy Cam, Texas Instruments RI-TRP-W9TD-30 RFID TAG, Raptor\u00ae anti scaling security spikes x8, Xchanging vinyl decals, galvanized steel, aluminium. [The Winklevoss Twins or ‘Winklevii’ are two venture capitalists, American rowers and Harvard graduates. In 2004, the Winklevoss brothers sued Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for $140 million, claiming he stole their ConnectU idea to create the popular social networking site. Much of their fame has emanated from their portrayal in the 2010 film The Social Network where they were played by actor Armie Hammer.]<\/p>\n
Throughout the text component of your various rare earth sculpture projects, there is an emphasis on the ability of these objects to expand people\u2019s minds merely through their coming into being. Is this satirical or are you being serious?<\/b><\/p>\n
Much of my work explores the ambiguity between positions between belief and scepticism, certainty and uncertainty; it\u2019s simultaneously serious and humorous. It therefore shouldn\u2019t be clear which one of these positions I\u2019m taking with any particular work. In my opinion, extreme relativism, shouldn\u2019t be taken lightly or dismissed. In fact, \u00a0we should be able to hold two seemingly opposing positions.<\/p>\n
I like the idea that objects that can expand your mind exist because there have been many times that artworks have felt like they have literally done this to me and also because much of my work explores the weird contradictions of the New Age Movement, which I\u2019m obsessed with. However, as much as I\u2019m self consciously presenting a parody of research practice, I am also presenting a parody of the idea that art can have this consciousness expand effect. Having said that, I wouldn\u2019t be so invested in such a task if part of me didn\u2019t also believe in such a possibility.<\/p>\n
Interview by Nadim Samman “Energy Pangea:\u00a0Terbium Energy Catalyst \/ Solar Maximum \/ Hybrid Synergy Drive” is on show at Future Gallery<\/a> from 4\u00a0July \u2013 1 August 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n More: Review of THEM at Schinkel Pavillon<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
Taken from issue #45 “Silent Spring”. Order a copy of our latest issue #46 here<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n