Machine Learning
Location: The Auxiliary Project Space, 31 Station Street, Middlesbrough, TS1 1SR
Dates: Fri 26 Sept - Sat 4 Oct (closed Mon 29 Sept & Tue 30 Sept)
Hours: Daily 10am-5pm (Sun 12-4pm)
Access: Step Free
Artists: Mike Stubbs
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Bex Massey’s work examines the role of painting and the language of display in the face of popular culture. They amalgamate simulacra and allegory to investigate notions of ‘worth’ via motifs and tones extracted from their childhood. Massey’s previous works and exhibitions have engaged the codes and history of queer culture, along with markers of selfhood and Northern identity. Recent works have become visually softer, more sedate and uncomfortable as the unease and ‘value’ in this series is created via the relationships between the minimal conflations.
Instagram @masseybex
www.bexmassey.com
about the show.
Machine LearningThis audio-visual meditation delves into our intricate connections with machines, mineral exploration, and our dependence on fuel. Developed as part of a research scholarship by Mike Stubbs, at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, centres on the Boulton and Watt Rotative steam engine of 1873. Intricately weaving together video, archive and sound to interrogate the impact of this single machine: its role in accelerating the industrial revolution, shaping the growth of Sydney, and fuelling globalisation.
The rotative steam engine stands as a potent metaphor for the flow of mineral energy, symbolising the surge in power, agency, and capacity brought about by fossil capitalism. Its productivity heralded the era of industry, progress, exploitation, efficiency, time profit, capitalism, the internal combustion engine demonstrating self-regulating engineering principles which perhaps as a progenitor of machine learning.
