Phone and desktop versions of michaelstevenson.info
differ according to their navigational system
this one’s a list—–the other’s a journey
In a 1964 article, Thomas Gladwin compares the navigation methods of the Chuukese & Europeans at sea. Europeans follow a predetermined plan based on universal principles, adjusting as needed to stay 'on course.' Chuukese, on the other hand, start with an objective & navigate ad hoc using the wind, stars, & waves. They can point to their destination at any time but cannot describe their course (Gerald Berreman, 1966).
an AI abridged version of the preface from - Plans and Situated Action:
The problem of human-machine communication Lucy Suchman 1985
2024
inc.
laser-engraved fabric & the peaceable kingdom
—the 3 charities read a post-dated
letter from their possible future selves…
Fine Arts, Sydney 2024
inc.
laser-engraved fabric & a stress-test,
(an aside)
—charity's forsaken cat…
Fine Arts, Sydney 2024
charity leans in—
inc. laser-engraved fabric & the
counter-factual apologetics of
Earning-2-Give…
Fine Arts, Sydney 2024
Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 2023
inc.
1 m3 of yielding soft-furnishings & the words
of a now defunct charity website
—everyone’s welfare matters…
Fine Arts, Sydney 2024
Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 2023
inc.
1 m3 of yielding soft-furnishings & the words
of a now defunct charity website
—our team & board members…
Fine Arts, Sydney 2024
Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 2023
inc.
1 m3 of yielding soft-furnishings & the words
of a now defunct charity website
—our funding round is currently closed…
Fine Arts, Sydney 2024
Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 2023
inc.
a 1 m3 yielding core & lining—
an aleatoric decision making matrix
for 6 outcomes…
Fine Arts, Sydney 2024
Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 2023
2023
inc.
A door in a freestanding wall
with a moral imperative & post-modern
pretensions…
Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 2023
a walking billboard, posterchild, or charnel house
for the AI soul—inc. ½ a RoboCop morph suit,
Teva sandals, baby bibs, a bunk bed &
goodnight rug—will we eat baby food forever?
Fine Arts, Sydney 2022
inc.
latex, net, webcam, biodegradable plastic bag
—effects for a fictional telethon with surprise
appearances & on-camera confessional…
Fine Arts, Sydney 2022
Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief
(publication)
2021
a hardcover enclosing 2 documents
bound with a single rubber band,
upon opening they part ways—
cover, band, vol i: Cultural Dope
vol ii: Kayfabe Logic…
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021
MUMA, Melbourne 2019
Sternberg Press Ltd, London
2021
inc.
a pantomime bird head, coin feeder mechanism
& water bottle of generous capacity—
cos... you say it, you pay it!
Galleria Frederico Vavassori, Milan 2023
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021
inc.
love or fear? Bezos & the missionary zeal
of Annie Vallatton composing
the Amazon.love list…
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021
inc.
a collection of paintings & studies from 1987
oil on panel, ink on paper &
a structure from shrink wrap
encaptulated scaffold…
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021
inc.
galvanised welded steel bike rack, locks,
& various species of inappropriate footwear…
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021
Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam 2020
inc.
foldable Plexiglas shield, acoustic foam,
—lunar sample #15415 replica (Here I am,
Taketh Me)—electrolyte imbalance,
heart arrythmia, auditory verbal hallucination
—a cardboard ark, paws & hooves…
Museum Sztuki, Łódź 2021
Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam 2020
Fine Arts, Sydney 2020
inc.
foldable Plexiglas shield, acoustic foam, cosplay
& a trial by jury backward-engineered—
Python Power bandana—oversized latex edition
—frozen in LN2 & wrestled on the floor…
Museum Sztuki, Łódź 2021
Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam 2020
Fine Arts, Sydney 2020
inc.
stretched, gridded airline blankets, scrap aircraft
tyres, finned aluminium heat sink, bird spikes—
a mini campus for 2 previously unrelated courses
connected via a walkway...
steirischerherbst, Graz 2023
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021
MUMA, Melbourne 2019
Biennale of Sydney, Sydney 2018
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland 2017
inc.
V-form keyboard stand, scrap commercial
aircraft tyre, airline blankets, rain chains—
a teaching aid for spirit mappers & squatters
(who gain their rights thru deception)…
steirischerherbst, Graz 2023
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021
MUMA, Melbourne 2019
Biennale of Sydney, Sydney 2018
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland 2017
2017-
inc.
68kg solid plastic waste, bungee cord, scrap
commercial aircraft tyre, academic robe—
faith-healing & rudimentary physiology
just tell us where it hurts…
steirischerherbst, Graz 2023
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021
MUMA, Melbourne 2019
Biennale of Sydney, Sydney 2018
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland 2017
inc.
chalk marked scrap commercial aircraft tyre,
scholars chair, DSM III—Sybil Isabel
Dorsett’s 16 selves, dental floss & a plastic
whistle for attention…
steirischerherbst, Graz 2023
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021
MUMA, Melbourne 2019
Biennale of Sydney, Sydney 2018
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland 2017
Aeron chair chassis upgrade—
enhanced imperial proportions
—full morphological freedom…
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021
MUMA, Melbourne 2019
Biennale of Sydney, Sydney 2018
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland 2017
inc.
eggs, cigar cases, & tablets—placed with precision
on photovoltaic panels...
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021
MUMA, Melbourne 2019
Biennale of Sydney, Sydney 2018
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland 2017
2017-
an object lesson—
inc. Solyndra solar cell, stacked Solyent
ready-to-drink meal replacement,
tattered bandana & sunglasses...
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021
MUMA, Melbourne 2019
Biennale of Sydney, Sydney 2018
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland 2017
near-miss events in congested skies (not
all of a material in nature)—inc. handset for an
unseen drone, magnetic tape, stacked wooden
aircraft wheel chocks & marshalling wands…
Art Basel, Basel 2016
inc.
FAA approved fabric covering, airline blankets,
zinc chromate conversion coating on steel,
books, prayer cards, video projection...
Carl Freedman Gallery, London 2016
Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis 2016
Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen 2015
inc
doors set in adjustable steel frames,
competing gaming bots—
the hiss of compressed-air lines releasing…
steirischerherbst, Graz 2023
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021
Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam 2020
Liverpool Biennial 2014
Michael Stevenson: An Introduction
(publication)
2013
a first published collection of practice
inc. science fiction, anthropology, philosophy
—a primer with page cutouts...
Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City 2012
Portikus, Frankfurt 2012
Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne
2013
an artist book by Michael Stevenson
& Jan Verwoert—in times of uncertainity
financial—otherwise
a collaborative writing game
—"Give Me More!"
Published jointly by JRP|Ringier, Zurich
& Clouds, Auckland 2013
inc.
daylight, paper aircraft model, mirror,
lens, plexiglas & buttermilk…
Portikus, Frankfurt am Main 2012
(publication)
2012
a short rumination on flight
on weight-reduced paper stock
—opened in the hand
its pages float while turning…
Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City 2012
Portikus, Frankfurt 2012
Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne
2007
inc.
cardboard, wood, steel, fabric remnant, aircon
ducts, & avian remains…
Arnolfini, Bristol 2008
Art Unlimited, Art Basel, Basel 2007
inc.
60-litres of circulating water denominated in
dollars, Plexiglas, steel, plasticine, string—
a calculator for total national income minus
—the drips, splashes & leaks onto
cinder blocks beneath…
MoMA, New York 2023
Regen Projects, Los Angeles 2017
Artgenève, Geneva 2012
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 2011
ZKM, Museum für Neue Kunst, Karlsruhe 2011
The Power Plant, Toronto 2008
Göteborgs Konsthall, Göteborg 2008
Tate Modern, London 2007
Vilma Gold, London 2007
CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts
San Francisco 2006
c/o The Central Bank of Guatemala
(publication)
2006
inc.
primary source materials from the
Central Bank of Guatemala
—with the kind assistance of its
longest serving employees…
Capp St Project -
CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts 2006
inc.
gold-leaf—bricks
chaos...
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 2010
Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach 2005
Vilma Gold, London 2005
Art of the Eighties and Seventies
(publication)
2006
dust jacket, hard-bound linen cover,
text descending the spine—
mimetic cravings for a certain Rizzoli catalogue
& the lost cause of its art collection
Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach 2005
REVOLVER - ARCHIV FÜR AKTUELLE KUNST, Frankfurt
inc.
straw, mud, mica, withered rice cultivars, rusting
steel—a search for a pocket-sized private
apartment in a post-modern civic museum or
—an ode to collecting art…
Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach 2005
inc.
sheet metal, Skoda powertrain, sheep
skins & butter—a white paper
for the coming nuclear winter…
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
City Gallery, Wellington 2005
New Zealand Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2003
inc.
backwardated works in gouache, acrylic, ink,
graphite, marker pen—plus copious
double-sided tape & glue…
Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 2022
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth 2000
Michael Stevenson
Berlin, Germany
Contact:
E-Mail: info@michaelstevenson.info
Responsible for content:
Michael Stevenson
Copyright:
All images and content on this website are protected by copyright law.
Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of any content is prohibited without prior written consent.
Design: Michael Stevenson in collaboration
with Joseph Lanzinger
Text: Michael Stevenson with editorial assistance
from Habib William Kherbek
Built on Word Press xx.09.2024
60 litres of circulating water, plexiglass, steel, aluminium, brass, plasticine,
string and the sounds of drips and splashes on wet cinder blocks ...
“It was not IBM compatible,” recalled Don Alberto Muñoz, when asked for his first impressions of a then novel computing tool: the MONIAC or Phillips Machine, when it arrived at the Central Bank of Guatemala in 1953. The machine was designed and built by the economist A.W.H. (Bill) Phillips in 1949 during his studies at the London School of Economics. He developed a water-based, large-scale analog computer for calculating a nation’s total income or, in other words, a physical model of the national economy. Water, Phillips' medium of choice, becomes money: dynamic, fluid, fixed in volume, but eternally changing shape.
In reserve or flowing across a series of interconnected plexi tanks, drains, and chokepoints, the water disperses into discrete volumes to be quantified and calibrated as dollars. Phillips' choice was pragmatic - in earlier days he’d been an engineer on a hydroelectric dam. Deeply enchanting the MONIAC may be, but compatible with the imperatives of the tech titan IBM it was not. Phillips envisioned the device as a visual aid for the classroom. Why a central bank would need such a tool remained unclear even after it was ensconced in Guatemala. What’s more, it leaked.
To say its record of achievement is mixed would be an overstatement: It was barely used. It could not predict. It did not model useful data; however, these capacities obscured what its primary role turned out to be: the machine was a witness to extraordinary times. In 1953 just eyeballing the MONIAC may have given rise to hope. Its imposing (if complex) presence represented the incarnation of an independent Guatemalan economy ...
60 litres of circulating water, plexiglass, steel, aluminium, brass, plasticine,
string and the sounds of drips and splashes on wet cinder blocks ...
“It was not IBM compatible,” recalled Don Alberto Muñoz, when asked for his first impressions of a then novel computing tool: the MONIAC or Phillips Machine, when it arrived at the Central Bank of Guatemala in 1953. The machine was designed and built by the economist A.W.H. (Bill) Phillips in 1949 during his studies at the London School of Economics. He developed a water-based, large-scale analog computer for calculating a nation’s total income or, in other words, a physical model of the national economy. Water, Phillips' medium of choice, becomes money: dynamic, fluid, fixed in volume, but eternally changing shape.
In reserve or flowing across a series of interconnected plexi tanks, drains, and chokepoints, the water disperses into discrete volumes to be quantified and calibrated as dollars. Phillips' choice was pragmatic - in earlier days he’d been an engineer on a hydroelectric dam. Deeply enchanting the MONIAC may be, but compatible with the imperatives of the tech titan IBM it was not. Phillips envisioned the device as a visual aid for the classroom. Why a central bank would need such a tool remained unclear even after it was ensconced in Guatemala. What’s more, it leaked.
To say its record of achievement is mixed would be an overstatement: It was barely used. It could not predict. It did not model useful data; however, these capacities obscured what its primary role turned out to be: the machine was a witness to extraordinary times. In 1953 just eyeballing the MONIAC may have given rise to hope. Its imposing (if complex) presence represented the incarnation of an independent Guatemalan economy ...
—a counterweight decoupled from its troubled empirical rival: the seething mess of American corporate interests swallowing the country’s GDP. This was not simply a metaphorical swallowing: the revolutionary government of Jacobo Árbenz recently had begun a programme for agrarian reform, upending the dominance of the United Fruit Company, the world’s largest banana producer. For some 15-months the MONIAC witnessed this geopolitical standoff before in 1954, a CIA-led coup toppled Árbenz. Soon after the machine disappeared, its fate today remains unknown. As a promissory note betokening a different future, the MONIAC turned into a kind of sunk cost fallacy of the past.
2023 »Chosen Memories, Contemporary Latin American Art from the
Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Gift and Beyond« Museum of Modern Art, New York
2017 »Primordial Saber Tararear Proverbiales Sílabas Tonificantes Para Sublevar
Tecnocracias Pero Seguir Tenazmente Produciendo Sociedades Tántricas –
Pedro Salazar Torres (Partido Socialista Trabajador)« Regen Projects, Los Angeles
2012 »Magic Love Trade Objects« Artgenève, Geneva
2011 »The Global Contemporary, Kunstwelten nach 1989«
ZKM, Museum für Neue Kunst, Karlsruhe
2011 »Michael Stevenson« Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
2008 »History Acts« Göteborgs Konsthall, Göteborg
2008 »Not Quite How I Remember It« The Power Plant, Toronto
2007 »The Irresistible Force« Tate Modern, London
2007 »Answers to Some Questions about Bananas« Vilma Gold, London
2006 »c/o The Central Bank of Guatemala« CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts,
San Francisco
© 2024. Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence
—a counterweight decoupled from its troubled empirical rival: the seething mess of American corporate interests swallowing the country’s GDP. This was not simply a metaphorical swallowing: the revolutionary government of Jacobo Árbenz recently had begun a programme for agrarian reform, upending the dominance of the United Fruit Company, the world’s largest banana producer. For some 15-months the MONIAC witnessed this geopolitical standoff before in 1954, a CIA-led coup toppled Árbenz. Soon after the machine disappeared, its fate today remains unknown. As a promissory note betokening a different future, the MONIAC turned into a kind of sunk cost fallacy of the past.
2023 »Chosen Memories, Contemporary Latin American Art from the
Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Gift and Beyond« Museum of Modern Art, New York
2017 »Primordial Saber Tararear Proverbiales Sílabas Tonificantes Para Sublevar
Tecnocracias Pero Seguir Tenazmente Produciendo Sociedades Tántricas –
Pedro Salazar Torres (Partido Socialista Trabajador)« Regen Projects, Los Angeles
2012 »Magic Love Trade Objects« Artgenève, Geneva
2011 »The Global Contemporary, Kunstwelten nach 1989«
ZKM, Museum für Neue Kunst, Karlsruhe
2011 »Michael Stevenson« Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
2008 »History Acts« Göteborgs Konsthall, Göteborg
2008 »Not Quite How I Remember It« The Power Plant, Toronto
2007 »The Irresistible Force« Tate Modern, London
2007 »Answers to Some Questions about Bananas« Vilma Gold, London
2006 »c/o The Central Bank of Guatemala« CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts,
San Francisco
© 2024. Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence
Think of it as Gaming the System in a transcendental sense: lots of rules, mercy as a liability, zero sum. To counter these spatial possessions, the rules of common property law are applied. Curiously, the demonic hierarchies comply.
The ramshackle assemblage that composes this instruction appears to be little more than an aircraft tyre, an electric piano stand, and an in-flight blanket. But those who have knowledge can see more. It may well pass as a wishing well, but wishes run in multiple directions. It is a well that foments its own rules, order, and worldview.
2023 »Humans & Demons« steirischerherbst'23, Graz
2021 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
2019 »Serene Velocity in Practice: MC510/CS183« MUMA, Melbourne
2018 »SUPERPOSITION: Equilibrium & Engagement« 21st Biennale of Sydney, Sydney
2017 »Serene Velocity in Practice: MC510/CS183« Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland