LA 2020
Humans on the verge of Extinction: an archeological study of the final days
Erik Zajaceskwoski, Christian Joy, David Shull, Rachel Nelson
Secret Project Robot is pleased to present Humans on the Verge of Extinction: An Archeological Study of the Final Days. A show in a jungle of wreckage, taken from the perspective of an anthropologist explorer from a future civilization sent to sort through the debris of industrialization and analyze the culture of a doomed era.
As the explorer begins an archeological dig in the jungle inhabited by dangerous and brilliantly colored flora and fauna, which have grown to gigantic heights due to the contamination of the land, they find just below the surface of the brilliantly covered ground, mountains of discarded objects.
As they begin to systematically arrange and classify these things into categories a strange story of excess becomes apparent; which could only be described as the process by which the civilization succumbed to the tyranny of their own desires in an amount that would be characterized as religious fervor, or abhorrent and gratuitous excess. The conclusion of the study is that it is the detritus of a civilization that to all purposes seems socially insane and hellbent on self destruction brought on by their own consumption.
For this show the artists Erik Zajacekowski, Rachel Nelson, David Shull and Christian Joy will build the world of the future explorer. The viewer enters the show through a diorama-like jungle and find the unearthed objects, i.e. the paintings, organized into groupings in a fashion similar to a natural history museum or archeological dig, in which each object set will have a label with a description and a theorized use. The show includes paintings, sculptures, reliefs and impressions of items and consumer goods.
The show is an effigy to the excess of consumption the discarded item and our complicit role in our own impending demise as humans via landfills, the destruction of nature, oceans and the resultant climate change.
MAY- AUGUST 2021
We Weren’t Always Here
JULY 2021
Between Here and There is Everywhere.
Secret Project Robot is pleased to present Between Here and There is Everywhere, an art installation using pyramids and light to scan the cosmos for a collective memory of hope and a brighter future.
According to ancient legend the great pyramids of the Giza Plateau were in perfect alignment with the three starts in the constellation of Orion, Orion representing the resting place of the soul of Osiris, the god of life. The pyramids were in this conception, a cosmic vehicle used to send the Pharoa’s home… For this installation artists Rachel Nelson and Erik zajaceskowski will look backward, upward and inward to construct a pyramid connected by colorful geometric shapes creating a stained glass effect that will capture sun light, moon light and star light, in hope that we too may find a vision of the future that brings us light and takes us home.
SEPTEMBER 2021
PERSONAL PRAYERS & DAILY MANTRAS:
Secret Project Robot is pleased to present Personal Prayers & Daily Mantras. A shrine and installation inspired by the gnostic demiurge. Accordingly, the show sustains that we have been entrapped in a fake real world where we have constructed a society that believes only the worship of money will free us from the material forces of existence.
Searching through history, Maggie Boyd, Eric Copeland, Erik Zajaceskowski and Rachel Nelson seek to find meaning in the matrix, but find only the most subtle of conspiracies and the most fervorous of crimes waged against the common spirit of humanity. Their endeavor becomes an anthropological study, documenting the slow indoctrination of the worship of money above all other gods.
In ancient times, there were tithes and sacrifices for good harvests and healing, one would conjure deities for safe passage and travel. Because droughts and natural disasters and diseases could destroy whole civilizations, to some extent, the collective good was the individual good.
And yet, be it the devil, working remotely, or the forces of Catholicism pressured upon a pagan people, forced to chose one thing to worship most devoutly, the slow and gradual rise of money became the gate keeper for access to all the gods and for the Judeo-Christian God as well. The crime, the great conspiracy then, was the slow replacement of the signifier, i.e. faith and belief in a higher power, to only the signified, i.e. the in the currency used for that worship, eliminating the sign altogether and creating a gradual dystopia that perpetuates itself in a greedy feedback loop of wealth seeking.
This art show will translate the belief of money into an iconography of cult-like religious fervor and create a small temple and shrine in honor of the heretical nomos. The installation will encompass offerings including, ceramic vessels and paintings of icons made to represent a translation of our hidden belief, our hopes of attaining ever lasting wealth.
FALL 2019
ACE HOTEL
The tabernacle of discarded dreams
