MachineHistories | Tucson 3 Ways: A Foray Into Digital Alchemy

Los Angeles-based Steven Joyner and Jason Pilarski are MachineHistories, a duo extremely well respected and intensely active in the field of fabricating artwork, products, and experiments for a prestigious list of clients. In correlation with—but independent of those applications—their exhibition in MOCA’s Great Hall will be manifestly an expression of their own practice, unconnected to any commercial concerns. Continuing their use of custom algorithms as a way to process data into three-dimensional form, they will utilize Tucson GIS  (geographical information system) data sets to realize an unusual and not literal topographical depiction on two floor-to-ceiling fourteen foot wide doors, through which the viewer will see an equally monumental obelisk through the cracked-open divide. Unique Sonoran landforms, indigenous plant life, the Santa Cruz riverbed, barrio gentrification, and local political moments will be transformed into an “image” containing copious amounts of information not readable as a “map” or “picture.” Instead, it will be an anecdotal relief, a mesh, more akin to synthetic bark, freshly and unorthodoxly describing Tucson’s distinctiveness, played out on the corporeal inorganic forms MachineHistories so inventively and skillfully creates.

“What if Rodin had a CNC machine and big data was forcing his hand while Kubrick provided stage direction and they used a Tony Smith-like piece on set.”

MachineHistories Didactics & Map

Images by Maya Heilman-Hall