In the work, Oursler blends fragments of speech from the history of technology with images of heads. Through the dark, a projected hand knocks on clouds of smoke, trees and surrounding buildings. Oursler uses the landscape as a stage for enlarged projections of text messages and email.
"The installation makes connections between historical scientists and inventors. It’s very beautiful and evocative and included in the Tate Modern collection," says Richard Julin, the artistic director of Accelerator at Stockholm University.
The physicist and magician Etienne-Gaspard Robertson, who made the first manned balloon flight in Sweden; John Logie Baird, one of the inventors of the mechanical TV; and Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of the fully electronic TV, are some of the inventors and adventurers featured in the work.
Read more about The Influence Machine and visit Tony Oursler's studio.
Accelerator - a multidisciplinary zone for free thoughts
Accelerator is a new organisation at Stockholm University, established in 2015. It will be housed in the old, abandoned Manne Siegbahn laboratory on Frescati campus. The venue is currently being converted to meet the operational needs of Accelerator's exhibitions and other public activities, and is scheduled for completion in 2018.
In the period prior to completion of the new premises, Accelerator activities will occur in other locations. These activities, still under development, will have an emphasis on the interface between art, science and society. Visual expression works differently than words. Researchers from various fields will meet for analysis, comparison and discussion based on or resulting in an exhibition or other public presentation. "It will be a place where you can think freely and art can help with that. It’s a zone for free thoughts," says Richard Julin, the newly appointed artistic director for Accelerator.
Richard Julin is involved also in the forthcoming Oursler event. The acting director is Professor Johan Kleman. Accelerator is based on the initiative of Margaretha Rossholm Lagerlof, professor emeritus in art history at Stockholm University and Magazine III's director David Neuman, affiliated professor and honorary doctor at the Stockholm University.
Accelerator is a unique, multidisciplinary initiative, with a strong base in collaboration with external partners who can provide ideas, data and resources for innovative and future research and education. A long-lasting and successful cooperation with external parties including Magazine III has occurred in the Master's programme Curating Art.