Winged Rock | Andy Weir

Winged Rock / Unearth / Compressed Intercessor, 2020-2021

video + sculptural objects, burial and buried objects, diagram print.

See:

Digital Matters: Designing/ Performing Agency in the Anthropocene, Berlin

This work is initially based on research into the lands surrounding the HADES underground laboratory for research into long-term management of radioactive waste in the Mol-Dessel area of Belgium. Following meetings with local community groups, the artist explored myths of the land with an expert in cultural heritage of the area, Janna Lefevere. This focused on Mol, Dessel and neighbouring borderland Postel, location of excavated burial sites, and many narratives of spirits of the earth. The work aims to draw connections between the earth, these myths of the local underground and myths of planetary flight and escape. It uses the materiality of buried waste as an 'interscalar vehicle' (Hecht) to navigate between the local site and other scales.

It takes the form of:

- A new Pazugoo figure based on the form of the 'winged rock'. This draws on the story of De Blauwe Kei, mysterious border stone lost underground in this area, combined with the demonic excess of wings of mythic figures of flight. The figure is designed from composite museum artefact scans, 3D printed in plastic, cast in bronze, exhibited and then buried at the site as a future relic for an unknown future.

- A poster diagram drawing schematic connections between myths of the undergound and myths of flight, localised encounters, deep time and planetary distribution / extraction processes.

- A video of landscapes, voiced by Lefevere on narratives of the earth, interrupted by an encounter with an underground bass sound.

This work was shown together as an installation at The Work of Time, Z33, House for Contemporary Art in Hasselt, local to the HADES site, curated by Ils Huygens, supported by Z33.

The work later developed into further video / sonic sculptural work with the first Compressed Intercessor object, first shown in an exhibition at the Heilig-Geist Kapelle, Humbolt University, as part of the DRHA 2021 event in Berlin.

images: video stills; designs in process for the figure; image of the poster diagram, installation of work. Z33, video close-up (2020) ; Compressed Intercessor 1 (SLS plastic with polysester/spandex greenscreen hood, Topshop at ASOS crystal pendants, MP3 player w/sound, 2021), and exhibition display.