The Crystal World Open Laboratory
The Crystal World Open Laboratory is a five day lab of experimentation, crystallization and de-crystallization starting from the premise that computers are highly ordered set of minerals.
The White Building, London, with Martin Howse, Ryan Jordan, and Jonathan Kemp.
The Lab is now fully subscribes, but details of talks, events and outcomes are coming soon!
July 17 - 21 2012
The absolute silence of the vegetation along the banks and the deep prismatic glow almost convinced him that the entire earth had been transformed and that any progress through this crystal world had become pointless.
- J.G. Ballard, The Crystal World
The Serpent that announces, "The World is a closed thing, cyclical, resonant, eternally-returning," is to be delivered into a system whoseonly aim is to violate the Cycle.
- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
The Crystal World Open Laboratory is a 5-day lab of experiments in crystallization and de-crystallization starting from the premise that computers are highly ordered set of minerals.
Crystalline structures are extracted from the earth, and re-crystallised through industrial process as equally ordered computers. In their technological redundancy, precious metals are in turn extracted or de-crystallized within cycles which further destroy life and leach a dangerous chemistry into the planet.
Mimicking the often dangerous processes undertaken in these extractions by the world's dispossessed, The Crystal World Open Laboratory proposes to expand these industrialised interventions through experimentation in the formation of novel crystal geologies aimed to etch unexpected psycho(geo)physical distortions and contingencies into our contemporary crystalline cycles.
Activities across the five days will include mineral extraction and precipitation, biological doping (addition of impurities to engender computational properties) of substrates, construction of high heat and high voltage synthetic geologies, crystalline signal processing, speculative geophysics, anthropocenic (re-) fossilizations, and diffracted odic imaging. A final evening of presentation and live experimentation will attempt to fuse these diverse actions, culminating in the ingestion of colloidal suspensions of precious metals to stem the contemporary plague.
Experiments will include high heat, high voltage, and toxic processes. Safety gear and induction will be provided but please bring any masks/goggles/labcoats or similar if available. While we provide full safety guidelines participants take part at their own risk.
http://crystalworld.org.uk
http://thewhitebuilding.org
https://spacestudios.org.uk/whats-on/the-white-building
Martin Howse: http://1010.co.uk/org
Ryan Jordan: http://ryanjordan.org
Jonathan Kemp: http://xxn.org.uk
Mailing List: http://www.freshsent.info/crystal
The Crystal World is part of a Permacultures residency supported by SPACE, Bloomberg and Arts Council England, London.