Saturnism

 

兼容的盒子计划第一百五十一期 bazaar compatible program #151
31°12.246'N 121°25.010'E
铅中毒_Saturnism
爱丽丝-贝荷堂 和 黑让-贝塔凡 Alice Bertrand and Réjean Peytavin
2017/06/06- 2017/06/18
安顺路98号小商品市场内26号铺 Shanghai, 98 Anshun Road, stall 26

Our civilization feeds on rapid innovation with known consequences to society yet the long-term health risks remain unknown. The Roman Empire, the very one which systematically equipped its cities with long-lasting conduits, succumbed to madness: the lead pipes delivered poisoned water, a vector of saturnism, of lead poisoning. Today, wifi, Bluetooth, GPS, etc. are everywhere. Intangible waves, yet they pierce all flesh, all façades, all roofs. What if we have launched our own obliteration?

With miniaturization and dematerialization, new technologies create new uses more and more rapidly. In parallel, not only does the old become obsolete, it also progressively disappears for lack of transmission. Manual ancestral tools are replaced by machines, our opposable thumb is more often limited to repetitive and basic actions. Man dreams however of exploring new planets, of taming virgin territory. And what if in the near future, with no robots or artificial intelligence, we had to rediscover the use of old-fashioned instruments? What if our manufactured objects, removed from their original context, became the objects of previously unknown rituals?

Alice Bertrand and Réjean Peytavin
Paris, May 25th, 2017