Julien Woolley-Fisher

ambivalent machine

ambivalent machine is a sculptural object that is part machine, part architectural fragment, but fully neither of these things; it exists in this ambiguity, this abstractness. A mentor of mine once described it as a “cross-section of a building that has grown feet.”A lattice or paving stone pattern is etched onto the coarse surface. A vent emerges out of the center, the interior coated by a bottle-dash treatment. On the base of the sculpture, a small crevice carries shards of glass into the machine-object, suggesting an industrial or productive energy. Quietly citing the bottle-dash treatment of my home region, this work suggests a reproduction of nostalgia, or reproduction of past space into future spaces, as something that might occur quietly, slowly, and in ways we don’t immediately see.