Fifty Sisters

Speaker(s):

Description: Fifty Sisters is comprised of fifty computer synthesised plant-forms, algorithmically “grown” from computer code using artificial evolution and generative grammars. Each plant-like form is derived from the primitive graphic elements of oil company logos. The title of the work refers to the original “Seven Sisters” – a cartel of seven oil companies that dominated the global petrochemical industry and Middle East oil production from the mid-1940s until the oil crisis of the 1970s. Oil has shaped our civilisation and driven its unprecedented growth over the last century. We have been seduced by oil and its bi-products as they are now used across almost every aspect of human endeavour, providing fuels, fertilisers, feedstocks, plastics, medicines and more. But oil has also changed the environment, evident from the petrochemical haze that hangs over many a modern metropolis, the environmental damage of major oil spills, and the looming spectre of the global climate crisis. With worldwide demand for oil now at 93 million barrels per day, humanity’s appetite for oil is unrelenting. Oil companies regularly report many of the all-time largest annual earnings in corporate history. This 3-screen triptych of the work presents each form sequentially as a slow, evolving mediation on nature, technology and human consumption. 3 x 4k synchronised video displays, stereo speakers, 30mins