The Absolute Factory is an elaborate audiovisual installation. The concept of this massive, apocalyptic work combines a scientific approach with a sense of absurdity and dark humor. Using the language of quasi-technological forms, industrial iconography, and pop culture, Andrzej Wasilewski addresses the complex topic of coal and fossil fuels in the context of climate change and new social and political utopias.
At the same time, the Absolute Factory" is a performance inspired by the spirit of neo-Dadaism and Fluxus practices, exposing the pathos of inflated values that shroud the language of the cultural world and "masking" the overblown aesthetics of works in the spirit of art and science, sound art, the archive, and minimalism.
The title motif was taken from Karel Čapek's classic Czech dystopian novel Absolute at Large, in which a visionary inventor invents a carburator—a device that extracts inexhaustible energy from coal. In this way, he releases the Absolute, the spiritual essence contained within all matter, into the world. If God is omnipresent, is it possible to extract divine substance from any object? As matter transforms into the concept of the Absolute, events spiral out of humanity's control, triggering a series of violent socio-political changes. As the carburator continues to release the Absolute, this process brings chaos, war, and finally, and last but not least, the near-total annihilation of the human race.
The Absolute Factory consists of several parts:
(1) The Museum of Lost Species (1100 dead insects, including 500 covered with graphite in a vacuum radiocarbon laboratory of radioactive isotopes 14C, 600 wooden display cases in sizes S, M, L, XL, white paint);
(2) Foucault's Pendulum (mobile installation: steel rope - 10 meters ø1.8 mm, net 25 kg of hard coal, hay net for cattle);
(3) Sound system or a score for 4 air fans (mobile sculpture: ventilation ducts, fine coal, dust, steel ropes, 80 meters of 3 x 0.75 cable, fans - musical piece for 4 fans composed by Stanisław Ruksza and Andrzej Wasilewski);
(4) Composition for 16 dosimeters (sound installation: DIY Geiger-Müller meters, 16 car speakers 300 W, 20 meters of 3 x 0.75 cable, samples containing carbon and other elements emitting cosmic radiation enclosed in lead sarcophagi equipped with a probe);
(5) Carburettor (installation: distiller, coal shale from Nowa Ruda, sugar-yeast mash)
