‘Biotechnology Garageband Phase’ by Adam Vačkář at Stone Projects

Chemistry, just like economics, (these days almost indistinguishable) will lead the anthropology of the material culture of this era
Benjamin H. Bratton

In the long run Adam Vačkář creates an economic and ecological scenario based on the reality of the consumer system. From Margin of Hope (2013), based on a concrete ecological crisis in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, it gradually transforms into the imaginary socio-critical scenario of the future.

Adam Vačkář, Biotechnology Garageband Phase, exhibition view

Adam Vačkář, Biotechnology Garageband Phase, exhibition view

His latest projects link pop cultural utopian series such as Star Trek (This Side of Paradise, 2016, Botany Bay, 2018) with an abstraction made up of concrete objects of a particular contemporary reality together with an imaginary vision of the future. The project created for Stone Projects uses common materials such as metal, glass, wood, and natural materials, whose properties and surfaces are altered to make their origin and destination unclear at first glance. It leaves the viewer in doubt and forces him to penetrate the other layers for an interpretation. Through photographs and installation, it evokes an indefinite mechanical reproducible repeatability, which turns upside-down: laser-carved precision metals embellish its uniqueness, and the plants, through their surface treatment and colour, are seemingly mechanically reproducible.

Adam Vačkář, Biotechnology Garageband Phase, exhibition view

Adam Vačkář, Biotechnology Garageband Phase, exhibition view

Adam Vačkář, Biotechnology Garageband Phase, exhibition view

Adam Vačkář, Biotechnology Garageband Phase, exhibition view

The contemporary world both outside and within us is changing at the molecular level, although it seems to remain the same. Doses of poisons in the form of micro particles of plastic, blended with the economic thought and belief in an endless economic growth penetrates the walls of our cells and changes the human condition on a biological level. Today we encounter other materials that are potentially equally transformative. From biotechnology to the Internet of Things to Artificial Intelligence and Robotics to Network Production and the Replication of Additives, this variety of materials allows for the re-composition of the world on previously unthinkable scales, the transformation of living tissue into a plastic medium and the intertwining of inorganic machines and landscapes with new kinds of practical intelligence.
Benjamin H. Bratton. On Speculative Design, DIS magazine