AUTOCENTER presents:
Andy Hope 1930
“Friday is too late“
Exhibition: 07.11.2015 – 05.12.2015
Robinson Crusoe in concrete
…and Friday is too late.
Stranded.
The transformation of an island and its anonymous terrain into an extension of our minds.
The mysterious peak veiled by cloud, the deceptively calm lagoon, the rotting mangroves and the secret spring of pure water together become out-stations of the psyche, as they must have done for our primeval forebears filled with lures and pitfalls of every kind.
Sometimes there are other islands far nearer to home, some of them only a few steps away …
The initial point is not the story of Alexander Selkirk which was the model of Robinson Crusoe but the story of Robert Maitland who became a castaway on a concrete island in Central London. Adapted from a story by J. G. Ballard, first published in 1974, this modern Robinson Crusoe trapped on a traffic island finds a way to escape from his own prison of modern life. Was it on Friday when he crashed on this embankment or was Friday a name he heard here first?
We are not alone on this island …
Exactly 20 years earlier, another story:
Two explorers are searching for Matt Maitland, a colleague accidently with the same surname, in the jungle somewhere in Central Africa, until they discover his horrible fate.
Like an island, a strange plateau hiding a secret – they find a plant with blonde hair wearing a belt with the initials MMM.
Interchanged characters and situations, using a kind of ‘Time Doorway’ to appear and disappear in different dimensions.
Maybe gravity leads to a better knowledge?
The Time Tubes obey a form of temporal energy conservation law. First seen on an image found in a newspaper by accident. They evoke a deeper black screen – with a perspective cutting.
A painting – seen as an image of a clock whose clockhands show parallel in the center.
Infintiy Crisis – paintings with black circles distorted into ovals – like pupils of a foreign force.
The Black Squares – fallen into a prehistoric space!
A stranded space ship as a container of cosmic debris.
Alienated codes, unexpected effects and distortion of space and matter – or the voice of a
‘Wonder Agent’ – a pure jungle of a ‘Concrete Mixing’.
The three M’s:
Matter – Miracle – Myth
Andy Hope 1930, Friday 6th November 2015
sources, works and characters:
Fotini Markopoulou-Kalamara, Quantum Gravity, Azores Conference 2009
Concrete Island, J. G. Ballard, 1974
Nightflyers, directed by Robert Collector, 1987, story by George R.R. Martin
Land of the Lost, directed by Brad Silberling, 2009, loosely based on the original TV series (1974–1976)
Forbidden Worlds, 1954
Quentin Meillassoux, Nach der Endlichkeit, 2008
Raymond Roussel, Eindrücke aus Afrika, 1980 (Impressions d’Afrique, 1909)
Herman Melville, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities, 1852
Kazimir Malewicz, Le peintre absolu, Andréi Nakov, 2007
Time Tubes, 2010
Sleekstak, 2015
Nightflyer, 2015
Maitlands, 2010
Looking North from the Edge of Lunar Crater, 2011/15
Clock With Parallel Clock Hands, 2013
Medley 29 (black square), 2012
Black Square, 2015
Infinity Crisis, 2015