Petronics is a blending of material temporalities, where the deep-time of lithic and organic processes mix with accelerated technological programming, whereby matter conjugates in coalitions of precarity and mutability. Objects are estranged from their exploitation as tools and resources; they are rendered into queer remixes that possess alien agencies which are perpetually turbulent. By materials that are neither settled nor fully known (concrete, silicone, bio-plastics, 3D printing), Petronics seeks to produce zones of enmeshment, wherein indeterminate vectors continually mutate and shift, producing emergent subjectivities oriented within a speculative expanse.
Gerard Carson
Gerard Carson is a former director of Platform Arts, a gallery and studio group based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and forms one half of the ongoing collaborative project “Goo Notorious”, alongside London based artist Andrew Rickett. Carson is a member of QSS Studios, located in east Belfast.
He graduated from the Ulster University School of Art in Design in 2010 and completed an MA in Fine Art at the Chelsea College of Art in 2015, where he was the recipient of the Frank Bowling Scholarship Award. His work has previously been exhibited with such spaces as New Art Exchange (Nottingham), Royal Hibernian Academy (Dublin), Banana Jam Space (Shenzhen), and Deptford X (London)
During the course of his practice he has acted as a project mentor with University of the Arts London Projects and has contributed towards theory groups such as “Art Research Matters (ARM)” and the “Maxilla Studios Reading Group (MSRG)”.
"My practice is concerned with the contingency of matter within the context of accelerated modes of technological production, ecological breakdown, and the indeterminate vectors of their effects/affects. The unknown quantities of matter become a malign force by their transformation into tools of extraction, where they permeate bodies, atmospheres, and communities. The extraction of antediluvian matter catalyzes a potent toxicity, where the fabricated technological-consumable product initiates a process of unknowing via runaway data collection, rendering the world into zone of cosmic weirdness. The effects/affects of global climate change eclipse human cognition. Aggressive data harvesting generates multiples crises, increasing the rate of epistemological murkiness. Local and global distinctions merge, creating a zone of stewed materiality and subjectivity."
Oiled Field, Digital Animation
Co(g)Oiled, Digital Animation
"Skirr". Wood, thermoplastic, hessian, plaster, parachute cord, carabiners, tension straps, threaded rods, steel, LED light strip, usb connector, sash cord, hooks, eyelets, spray paint. Dimensions variable. 2019
“Dreddgerm”. Thermoplastic, silicone, epoxy resin, borax crystals, pva, chain, spray paint. 2018. (Suspended from ceiling via chain).