WHERE’S MY JETPACK!?, Jack Hanley Gallery, 6/2011, N.Y.C.

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KAL SPELLETICH

WHERE’S MY JETPACK!?

machines, robots, jetpacks, video and photographs

http://www.jackhanley.com/current.php?site=ny

July 9th – August 12th, 2011

Closing Event Friday, August 12th 6-8PM

Beer & BBQ

Machines, Robots, jetpacks, video and photographs.

The future’s promise of ray guns, flying cars, X-ray specs, robot maids, moon colonies, zero gravity boots, floating cities and time machines have not been forgotten.

Closing Party Saturday August 12th, 2011

With Beer & BB-Q and a reading by Danielle de Picciotto and electronic sound-scapes by Alexander Hacke (of Einstürzende Neubauten)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaQOVGOZjRE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd-SpXJ3ops&feature=related

Jack Hanley Gallery
Jack Hanley Gallery 136 Watts, N.Y., N.Y. 10013
646-918-682 http://www.jackhanley.com/
Go on Canal St. West, way west, 2 blocks past Hudson, left on Watts.

Neither Kal Spelletich, Jack Hanley Gallery nor anyone shall be held responsible or liable for any LOSS, DAMAGE, INJURY or DEATH arising from any activity organized, sponsored or promoted by Kal or Jack the presenting organization anywhere in the universe, forever.

http://www.jackhanley.com/

VIDEO OF OPENING HERE;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk6Hl77iTHY

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There is a universal aspiration to fly. This desire to elevate oneself
above one’s environment–to conquer the ocean of air–can be seen as
a perennial struggle evident in nearly every civilization from classical
times to the early twentieth century. We will be merely participants in
an ancient and ongoing human struggle to conquer gravity.

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The future’s promise
of ray guns, flying cars,
X-ray specs we expected,
Robot Maids, moon colonies,
Zero gravity boots, floating cities and Time machines

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Ray guns
Flying Cars
X-Ray Vision
Food Pill
Personal Robot
Robot Maid
Moon Colonies
Zero gravity Boots
Rocket Packs
Floating Cities
Time Machines

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Video of installation:

Before flying was a means to an end, it was a sensation. The perennial struggle to fly sought a deep-rooted joy of weightlessness, the release of our own corporeality, and the all-too-human satisfaction of “touching the sky”. The flying machine made the human superhuman. For Kal Spelletich, flight’s future promise may be gone but not forgotten – where are the jetpacks? The flying cars, escape pods, gravity boots, moon colonies? This is supposed to be the future. Where’s My Jetpack?! takes us back to a moment of invention. Or perhaps, reminds us that its time is now.

As always with flight, there is an element of danger. The aspiration to conquer the sky comes with a gut-wrenching fear of free fall, an Icaran fate. Machinery may have liberated the body from gravity, but not the mind; Spelletich asks us to to consider how the body might transcend the mind in order to free it as well. Where’s My Jetpack? celebrates the fact that we are still participants in an ancient and ongoing struggle to conquer gravity.

Kal Spelletich received his MFA from the University of Texas at Austin and
currently lives and works in San Francisco, California. Spelletich helped found
SEEMEN, a collective of individuals who enjoy building extreme machines and robots
that they allow their audience to operate. He is a notorious guerilla gardener and activist.
He has also worked with the legendary machine performance art group, Survival
Research Laboratories.

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Weightlessness and the desire to defy one’s own corporeality is universal, timeless and unrelenting .

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