Into the Promittocene signifies a point in time, arrived at through an extensive six month residency at Wireworks, Ambergate. Taking the artist’s self-proclaimed theory about the next era in human evolution ‘The Promittocene’ as a starting point, the works created during the residency reflect on the prospect of humanity inhabiting a second planet. Whilst the notion of a second planetary colony is often portrayed under the guise of a utopian society, a better future and a leap forward in human technology, this body of work seeks to reconsider a future from an alternate, planetary perspective.
The notion of inter-planetary utopian futures are often built on the foundation of terraforming – to make the planet livable. This however, in its very essence, is cataclysmically chaotic and destructive when viewed or considered through the lens of that planet’s own ecosystem.
Exploring this fundamental idea at The Wireworks Project, which sits adjacent to Shining Cliff Woods, much time was spent wandering the woodland and looking for signifiers of human interference. Well trodden paths, worn away shortcuts, brushed aside foliage, and most catastrophically swathes of Larch trees on the hillside. The decimation of ancient Oak woodlands, in turn replaced with towering Larch, blanketing the woodland floor with fallen needles, negating the growth of other native plants, all for the purpose of farming timber.
The works on show bring together a consideration of how the woodland is humanised and how a future might exist on a new world if we continue to follow anthropocentric systems, alongside more noticeable tropes from cinema; such as, Fight Club, The Wizard of Oz and 2001: A Space Odyssey, all of which are watched over by an ambiguous an/protagonist.
