Measuring Angst
A mechanical reproduction of the act of throwing a beer bottle against a wall.
Using a complex mechanism, the bottle defies its destiny, endlessly repeating its final moments.
A mechanical reproduction of the act of throwing a beer bottle against a wall, an everyday gesture of destruction, drawn out and repeated endlessly by an elaborate machine.
Through precision engineering, the bottle is suspended in a loop, forever reenacting the moment before it shatters and the moment of its destruction. Its destiny is delayed, but never denied. This gesture, once impulsive and chaotic, has now become methodical and eternal.
As a species, we build systems to buffer ourselves from change: medicine, seatbelts, safety protocols, each a hedge against the inevitable. But the structure of the universe resists permanence. Entropy increases. Things fall apart.
To spend a year designing a machine to simulate a thoughtless act is an absurd inversion, yet a revealing one. In this reversal, the work lays bare our longing to master time, to hold back decay, even as we know the outcome is prewritten.
Construction
