Laura Moore

Kernel Memory - sculpture

June 9 - July 3, 2010

opening June 10
2pm - 8pm

USB Pinecone 43" x 16" in diameter
hand carved Italian Statuario marble, 2010

The sculptures are carved marble which combine natural and technical forms: acorns and a pinecone with USB stems.    Naturally, acorns and pinecones are experienced with our finger-tips.  The marble USB kernels have an embraceable quality: the dimension of the human abdomen, up-scaled at a ratio of 1 inch to 1 foot.  These fictitious forms create tension between two worlds of understanding.  Formally the objects are tangible, but conceptually they remain intangible because they are impossible.   No longer disposable or seasonal, the marble quality creates permanency.  By replacing the stems with USB plugs, the sculptures have had their connection to the tree that nourished them (and which they, as seeds, potentially reproduce) replaced with a connection to the contemporary techno-cultural world. The addition of the USB plugs asks us to imagine what these forms might plug into; what new forms of connection they might require or enable.

The series of drawings emerge from the process of the sculptures’ making and reassert the materiality of that process.  The sheets of paper were under the marble acorns while they were being carved and the surfaces of the drawings bear the traces of the work of carving.  The size of paper was determined by the size of the carving table and the frames of the works are based on the scale and proportions of the table the sculptures were carved on.  The outlines document the movement of my air hammer, measuring tape, set square, chisel, grinder and pencil as I worked to refine the forms.