SIGNS, SYMBOLS AND SHELLS
The triptych, Signs, Symbols and Shells, speculates on three states Former, Found and Future of a gas station in Boston. Extrapolating the totemic, image-based architecture of capitalism in a theological framework, the project imagines what denotes and then expands a signage that is excessive yet essential.
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Depicting the Found state, the Shell ‘spectacular’ sign is a pioneering example of the intersection between commercial use of neon lighting, electricity and mass automobile adoption, and remains a relic of the existing gas station. The Former panel questions what an architecture of proto-symbol is, an anti-type. Pre-automobile but post-industrial, the frame carries the latent potential of the repetition, an empty vessel co-opted by the attention economy. While the Future imagines the hyper-capitalist cathedral, escalating and distorting the apparatus of advertising, of signs and symbols. Paradoxically, in a world saturated by images, it questions whether a monument to the consumer exists if space is post-digital.
SIGNS, SYMBOLS AND SHELLS
The triptych, Signs, Symbols and Shells, speculates on three states Former, Found and Future of a gas station in Boston. Extrapolating the totemic, image-based architecture of capitalism in a theological framework, the project imagines what denotes and then expands a signage that is excessive yet essential.
Depicting the Found state, the Shell ‘spectacular’ sign is a pioneering example of the intersection between commercial use of neon lighting, electricity and mass automobile adoption, and remains a relic of the existing gas station. The Former panel questions what an architecture of proto-symbol is, an anti-type. Pre-automobile but post-industrial, the frame carries the latent potential of the repetition, an empty vessel co-opted by the attention economy. While the Future imagines the hyper-capitalist cathedral, escalating and distorting the apparatus of advertising, of signs and symbols. Paradoxically, in a world saturated by images, it questions whether a monument to the consumer exists if space is post-digital.
