Geo-imaginaries: A day in the life of a Hadean eon zircon crystal
In late 2020, Kettels undertook a durational performance that lasted one full rotation of the earth (or 24 hours). He stood facing an outcrop of ancient meta conglomerate rock at Erawondoo Hill, Western Australia. Erawondoo Hill is the location of the oldest known rocks on Earth. Zircon crystals held within the meta conglomerate rock can reach the age of 4.4 billion years. The experience of standing in this profound area produced a multifaceted engagement with site, sensory experience and temporal scales. Shortly before the end of the performance, he recorded a 30-minute monologue about the experience which now forms the audio of a time-lapse video. Before the performance, Rob thought the work would stand as a critique on humanism, dismantling the myth of the human subject at the centre of time. But due to the sheer difficulty of the endeavour, he eventually draw upon his individual subjectivity, widening the originally imagined dialogue, enabling personal reflections concerning the hyper-alienated construction of the human within the geological imaginary.
The following reflection is an abridged account of the audio that accompanied the time-lapse video.
After sixteen-hours of standing here,
with another eight-hours to go,
all I am left with are the metaphors I imagine myself to be,
and at the moment they seem inadequate.
These metaphors are not really my own,
They are inscribed through the cultural time I live in,
but the correlations I make with them, are my own,
and that is all I have.
I think about my mineralogical origins,
but the pain in my body reminds me I am not a rock.
I slow my thinking down,
I slow my breathing down,
but not in any Zen Buddhist way,
more in a vegging-out way.
I look out across the Jack Hills, I can see small bluffs,
and Miniritchie trees dwarfed by the extremes of weather,
the scene is now imprinted in my retina.
I stare back again to the rocks containing ancient zircons,
wondering whether I can ever engage them more meaningfully,
hoping for an epiphany to imagine geological time—nothing comes.
But instead my tired mind starts to make shapes in the rocks,
they are not scary but rather comical, cartoon like in character,
I want to laugh with the rocks, they look ridiculous.
Instead of feeling isolated or lonely,
the rocks make good company,
and I form a friendship with them.
A centipede bites on my ankle,
the sun bakes my neck,
I wriggle my toes and sway side to side to keep the blood moving.
I stare out onto the vast arid plain below,
and wonder if I will ever be able to understand space and duration more meaningfully.
I try to remember the Bergson and Deleuze that I read,
but then it all seems too abstract out here,
and instead I watch the sun silently cast long shadows that move slowly across the land,
as day turns into night and the celestial sky appears.
The visuality of the scene looks exactly as it did when I started,
but the correlations I make have changed.
Instead of observing the scene, I begin to form a relationship with it.
Rob Kettels is an artist and PhD candidate in Perth, Western Australia. His art practice involves site-specific field trips into remote and arid geographies. Rob’s work centres around how the geologic is imagined and represented–raising further questions concerning conventionalised geo/social formations and narratives.
Images details of artworks by Rob Kettels in sequence:
A day in the life of a Hadean eon zircon crystal (2020-2021), single channel time-lapse AV 30mins.
untitled (2020), digital photo.
Allegories of subjugation (2020-2021), plastic survey pins, digital photo, pigment ink on archival cotton rag, private collection.
Explaining humans to the oldest rocks on Earth (2020-2021), plastic survey pins, digital photo, pigment ink on archival cotton rag.
Allegories of subjugation and the laughable delusion that political and mining governance can bring ‘the environment’ under ‘their’ control (2020-2021), plastic survey pins, digital photo, pigment ink on archival cotton rag
untitled (2020), digital photo.
untitled (2020), digital photo.
W74 the oldest known terrestrial material on Earth (2020-2021), plastic survey pins, digital photo, pigment ink on archival cotton rag, private collection.
All Photos Rob Kettels.