Egg Transformer (Ella Papanek)

Egg Transformer (Youtube Link)

Ella Papanek

For my apocalypse, I have constructed a sculpture depicting a mysterious machine.  Through this machine, I channel several key facets of apocalyptic narratives. The most overt reference is to the classic “technological/robot apocalypse.”  The machine I have designed juxtaposes the modern and the outdated; while technological apocalypses are typically displayed through excessively powerful, futuristic technology (e.g. laser beams, forcefields, mind reading computers), I have chosen to portray the technological apocalypse through anachronistically simple machinery.  The machine itself consists entirely of gears, nobs, switches, and dials – all parts that would have existed during the industrial revolution. I think this approach is perhaps more disconcerting as it underscores the idea that the apocalyptic forces have emerged from deep within us rather than confronted us in the form of a new and foreign concept.

The second trope which I explore is the expression of the three phases of destruction, transformation, and liberation.  Transformation is the most clear as the eggs entering the central chamber are standard and unalarming and the eggs exiting appear strange and unnatural.  In order for this transformation to occur, destruction is required.  Through a window into the internal process, we can see that the eggs in the inner chamber are fully destroyed. This emphasizes the synthetic nature of the exiting eggs – they are not merely discolored versions of the input, but rather an entirely foreign and constructed product.  We doubt their material, their texture, their taste, and even their identity as eggs.

I have always enjoyed the work of Marcel Duchamp and took significant inspiration from his desire to create a conflict of response in the viewer.  I hoped to mimic this perversion of the standard object with the black eggs.  Eggs are traditionally used as symbol of birth, growth, and life.  By corrupting something so fragile, pure, and embryonic, I seek to express the inherently apocalyptic Duchampian sentiment. I feel that eggs, because of their symbolism and implications, offer the potential to convey this message particularly effectively.  No other object painted black would appear so unnatural and infected.  In this way, the eggs paint industrialism and the technological race as a plague or virus of its own. Perhaps the eggs will provoke disgust or discomfort in the viewer, but I anticipate primarily suspicion.  It seems as though the eggs must be dangerous or contain some kind of power produced in the machine, a force that we cannot yet grasp.  That fear of the unknown is precisely why this transformation is apocalyptic. 

I deliberated for some time regarding this, but in the end I chose to exclude all images of liberation.  While liberation is a crucial aspect of many apocalypses, I did not anticipate it would play an effective role in my sculpture.  Liberation is a feature of sociopolitical uprisings, societal upheavals – exchanges of power in favor of the formerly oppressed group (as in James Tiptree’s Houston, Houston, Do You Read?).  And indeed liberation is quite prominent in religious apocalyptic narratives (e.g. the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter) as well, but I aim for my apocalypse to provoke a sense of fear and powerlessness in the viewer.  The technological apocalypse is about being confined by what we’ve created and I felt its bleakness would be dampened by images of liberation.  I also believe breaking the trinity of liberation, destruction, and transformation magnifies the imbalance, uncertainty, and discomfort inspired in the viewer.

My idea itself and my aesthetic choices were heavily inspired by Fritz Lang’s silent film, The Complete Metropolis. The scenes highlighting factory laborers and their loss of individuality intrigued me the most.  I aimed to parallel that mechanized version of humanity in my piece and display a similar world wherein freedom, nature, and beauty are vanquished by uniformity.  While my machine is mysterious and it is difficult to determine precisely how it functions, it is clearly human operated and human created, suggesting that the pending apocalypse is a human phenomenon.  Similar to the nuclear apocalypse, it is something that can be entirely attributed to human greed, hubris, and rashness.  In Metropolis, the humans became slaves to the machines during their work shifts, but I envision this machine as a household item rather than a factory apparatus.  It is compact and does not appear to take significant effort to operate.  In this way, the mechanical virus infiltrates human lives even outside of the working hours.  In many ways, this is more menacing because there no longer exists the concept of solace or even ephemeral individuality. 

I use the eggs as a means of expressing the human experience in a machine-governed world.  The eggs resemble Fritz Lang’s factory workers, walking in step with each other as they head in and out of withdrawn manufacturing chambers.  Here, as the eggs file through they undergo physical loss of individuality – the slight differences in color, the few unique speckles that they formerly had are erased by the transition.  And with this transformation of the eggs, the line begins to blur between human and robot as well. 

On the side of my machine, there is a serial number “8766.”  This number is not random; it has a few interesting features.  First, it is counting downward, creating an ominous atmosphere.  Countdowns are frequently associated with the apocalypse, an idea popularized by cults who have beliefs about when precisely the apocalypse will occur. Secondly, it stalls at 6, almost as if the countdown clock itself is glitching.  This suggests supernatural interference –  glitching or malfunctioning of technology is a trope frequently used to reveal alien or superhuman presence.  It is especially threatening in this case because the glitch occurs at 6, referencing 666, the number of the devil.  On top of this, the presence of a serial number implies that there are a large number of similar machines.  This transformation from purity to evil is something that is not occurring in an isolated laboratory in one machine but rather as part of a mass institutionalized program, with perhaps millions of machines.  The serial number is a subtle nod to the German tank problem of World War II.  When the Allied forces captured a sample of Germany’s tanks, they naturally hoped to estimate the total number of German tanks based on the serial numbers. This problem has shaped statistical theory and highlights the boundless possible number of machines when we only have one observation.  Since we have only one machine, we know there are at least 8766 machines, but can only begin to imagine how many there could be. Threats of unknown magnitude are often the scariest of threats…

With that, I think I have addressed all of my major intentions and decisions.  There are likely smaller choices that I have not addressed, so feel free to reach out if there is anything that warrants further explanation.