#A.I.L – artists in laboratories, episode 34: HeHe

The new episode of #A.I.L – artists in laboratories, the weekly radio programme about art and science i present on ResonanceFM, is aired this Wednesday afternoon at 4pm (London time.)

0adevice8e_z.jpgHeHe, Fracking Futures, 2013, Installation at FACT. Image courtesy FACT

0a9looking1dbc7f.jpgHeHe, Fracking Futures, 2013, Installation at FACT. Image courtesy FACT

My guest tomorrow will be Heiko Hansen who, together with Helen Evans, forms the art & design duo Hehe. Heiko is not in the studio with us, alas! I met him last week in Liverpool where FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) was celebrating its first decade of heralding art & technology with a new exhibition called Turning FACT Inside Out.

Part of the anniversary involved commissioning new works to artists such as HeHe. And HeHe took the invitation to turn FACT inside out literally. Their new piece used the exhibition space to extract gas from the ground underneath the gallery and suggest that in the future we might want to bypass big energy companies and extract our own fossil fuels ourselves in our back garden.

The artists have filled the space with heavy machinery that extracts shale gas through a process called fracking. Fracking is short for ‘hydraulic fracturing’, a process that consists in pumping a highly pressurised mixture of water, sand and chemicals underground to extract gas. The process opens fissures in rocks, releasing the gas trapped beneath the earth’s surface. The plan brought forward by the artists is to use the gas to ensure the future operation of FACT and to export the energy directly to the local community.

The experimental drilling site looks like a mini inferno: it’s noisy, it is filled with red lights and flames, the furniture is shaking. And there’s even a filthy looking water pit.

0i9pondff60b.jpgHeHe, Fracking Futures, 2013, Installation at FACT. Image courtesy FACT

The objective of the Fracking Future installation is to highlight the relevance of the debates surrounding the fracking process, which are not only significant environmentally, but also economically. Fracking Futures is a fairly ambiguous piece. First of all, because the work does not intend to take a clear stand: it only illustrates the potential dangers of the process. At the same time, it considers the fact that fracking might offer citizens an opportunity to produce their own alternative source of energy. It is also an ambiguous project because the visitor is left to decide whether the fracking experiment at FACT is indeed genuine or whether it is merely a provocation from HeHe.

0pondpond1e0c89.jpgHeHe, Fracking Futures, 2013, Installation at FACT. Image courtesy FACT

_9mg_7220-copy.jpgHeHe, Fracking Futures, 2013, Installation at FACT. Image courtesy FACT

0a9installl5701_c.jpgHeHe, Fracking Futures, 2013, Installation at FACT. Image courtesy FACT

0i9vertd0f84.jpgHeHe, Fracking Futures, 2013, Installation at FACT. Image courtesy FACT

The show will be aired this Wednesday 19th of June at 16:00. Early risers can catch the repeat next Tuesday at 6.30 am (I know…) If you don’t live in London, you can listen to the online stream or wait till we upload the episodes on soundcloud.

The amazing soundtrack & field recordings which we mention in the programme is by Dinah Bird & Jean-Philippe Renoult.
Nicolas Triscott (from the Arts Catalyst which co-commissioned the installation) wrote an insightful blog post about the art work.

Many stories about or mentioning HeHe’s work.