Conversations about the perils of automation are as relevant today as they were in the 18th century. In the midst of unbridled technological development, on the precipice of the unknown, of the perhaps unknowable, this work reflects on where the human is in a world seemingly governed by machines.
Responding to the French Street Gallery’s original use as a weaving and dyeworks, ‘It Was The Loom That Broke My Heart’ explores industrialisation and its effects on traditional processes and on those involved in them, investigating the dyadic relationship between the factory and the factory worker, highlighting the interplay between these two actors.
Apparitions of products that would have been made here - homogeneous in following the designs of the machine, but in the process, impregnated with dream, memory, imagination of the hands guiding them. Seemingly autonomous processes, exposed in stasis without a life-force to support them.
Moving Image, Textile, Steel, Capacative Sensor, Jesmonite, 2023
