This installation presents a lighted candle under a bell jar at the center of a laboratory specially designed to keep the candle burning. In a controlled environment that rations the oxygen the flame consumes, the artist artificially lengthens the object’s useful life. Vanitas Machine, in fact, is the wish for immortality, an analogy for the effort invested in prolonging existence. With this work, the artist simply asks: Is death inevitable? The piece represents the rate-of-living theory, a foundational theory in the study of aging, which holds that the faster an organism’s metabolism, the shorter its lifespan. Slowing it down as much as possible, therefore, might postpone death. In this allegory, the candle and the bell jar restate recurring symbols of vanity in the form of death, the passage of time, the emptiness of passion, and the futility of human activity. The work encodes these symbols to present the tension between the fleeting nature of existence and the wish for immortality at any cost.
About the Mois Multi
Presented each year in February, Mois Multi is an event produced and organized by Les Productions Recto-Verso. The festival program features innovative works in the fields of multidisciplinary and electronic art. Mois Multi reflects the conceptual and technological changes that have led to unprecedented forms and practices in the “multi arts.” The uniqueness of the event stems from its interactive performances, installations, immersive environments, and works that fuse languages, materials, techniques, forms and artistic procedures of all kinds.
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