Mineralia

Notes on asphalt rocks:

-A series of asphalt-concrete sculptures Made during a residency in Atelier Mondial whose prime material was sourced from the
rubble containers of the Herzog & De Meuron building site at the Dreispitz neighborhood, right across the street from the artist’s
atelier in Basel, Switzerland.

-Incorporating the characteristic visuality of natural history museum display, these fragments of human-mediated mineral strata are
lifted from their everyday context to emphasize their geological status and aesthetic appeal.

-In these series of rocks, the crystal-like and reflective qualities asphalt displays when exposed to rain, sun and other elements are
brought to the fore by recreating the optical phenomenon that occurs when pouring motor oil on wet asphalt; usually oil works as a
prism of sorts, breaking the spectrum of light into the colours of the rainbow. In this case, applying

thin layers of nail polish on asphalt concrete reproduces the phenomenon known as structural coloration.

-In his treatise on the reflections, refractions, inflections and colours of light, Optiks, Newton described this structural form of colour
present in both bubbles or pools of oil and in the peacock’s feathers: ‘The finely colour’d feathers of some birds, and particularly
those of the peacocks’ tail, do in the very same part of the feather appear of several colours in several positions of the eye, after the
very same manner that thin plates were found to do.’

-Depending on structure and optical changes product of reflections and refractions of light, we can see different colours depending
on the angle from which we observe.

-Because both asphalt and enamel are refined by-products of crude oil, rather than evoking primeval periods and remote events,
these anthropocenic fossils evidence a current geological stratum; one characterized by the extraction and exploitation of and fossil
fuel and material.


There is something fascinating, about the semi-liquid, plasma-like quality of asphalt. Maybe it is the lure of an impossible
image, inaccessible either through the senses or the intellect: the idea of liquid stone. Petroleum, from which asphalt
derive, has its etymological Latin root in petra = rock + oleum = oil: rock’s oil. Caught in permanent flux between two
states of matter (solid and liquid) asphalt’s unstable condition brings to mind not just geological processes like
sedimentation and petrification, but also alchemical ones like distillation and liquefaction. As a naturally occurring
substance intervened by human agency (tekne) its hybrid constitution avoids being easily classified as natural or artificial
matter. One among many hybrid conceptions of modernity, asphalt-concrete is simultaneously a product of nature and an
effect of culture –its essence is dialectical, so to say.

II

Writing about the ominous evocations of concrete in his text Hormigon Crudo, Basque artist Asier Mendizabal conjures
the image of a heavy, semantic mud attached to its material surface –a certain layer of guilt. A similar image comes to
mind when considering asphalt concrete. Asphalt- concrete uses bitumen instead of cement as its bonding material.
Bitumen is a naturally occurring semi-solid form of petroleum that may be found in natural deposits or refined into a petro-
derivate product. Unlike cement, another ductile composite material that certainly evokes western teleological notions of
developmental growth and progress, asphalt directly depends on the systematic extraction of fossil fuels. It has been used
as a construction and sealing material from Sumerian to ancient Greek times, way before the industrial revolution for
example took place; an event some consider a landmark to define the beginning of an actual geological era known as the
Anthropocene. A term coined by the Nobel Prize in chemistry Paul Crutzen to replace the Holocene as the current era in
Earth's geological history, due to the significant global impact that human activities have had on terrestrial ecosystems.


III

To think through mineral and geological metaphors can be seen as yet another attempt to instrumentalize nature.
However, the metaphorical impulse to blur the line between mind and matter is constantly frustrated by the indifference of
the latter. In other words: despite any naïve efforts to ‘humanize’ matter, to make it sensible through poetic wishful
thinking, no thoughts can be definitely forced into it. It is stone-dead. Or is it?

IV

To consider matter for its poetic plasticity and metaphorical aptness is to somehow semanticize it –to employ it as a
vessel to convey meaning. Against this utilitarian aspect of metaphors, art can be thought of as a space where perception
is not unidirectional and subject- centred, but a field of mutual influence between subjects and objects. Or in the words of
Edouard Glissant, art can be the locus of a poetics of relation; “in Relation every subject is an object and every object a
subject”.