“It is made up of two pitiful figures: one is an elderly person, an ancient machine stiffened by duty and age...Next to him is a young man of around 15 years of age...His shirt is a shambles of soiled linen, revealing his arms and side.”
(Gustave Courbet)
Based on Courbet’s exhibition and his large scale paintings of laborers during the realist era in France, “The Fuel Siphoner” references the cycle of life and death illustrated in the the work: “The Stonebreakers”. It also acts as the first performance in the “The Pavilion of Realism“ series.
The piece itself is composed of a performer standing atop 3 wooden pallets as they mount an oil drum filled with diesel fuel. As the performer utilizes a hand pump to siphon this fuel back into the oil drum, biometric sensors and cables run from the nape and head down to a computer which interprets that data into 3-dimensional geometry mimicking the form of a fetus.
The documenting of this labor, the presentation of it as numerical data, and the screen, all become a mediator separating the the audience form the labor and exhaustion of the performer.
(Gustave Courbet)
Based on Courbet’s exhibition and his large scale paintings of laborers during the realist era in France, “The Fuel Siphoner” references the cycle of life and death illustrated in the the work: “The Stonebreakers”. It also acts as the first performance in the “The Pavilion of Realism“ series.
The piece itself is composed of a performer standing atop 3 wooden pallets as they mount an oil drum filled with diesel fuel. As the performer utilizes a hand pump to siphon this fuel back into the oil drum, biometric sensors and cables run from the nape and head down to a computer which interprets that data into 3-dimensional geometry mimicking the form of a fetus.
The documenting of this labor, the presentation of it as numerical data, and the screen, all become a mediator separating the the audience form the labor and exhaustion of the performer.