Autoxylopyrocycloboros, 2006
Simon Starling

Courtesy of the artist
Collection

Giclee print with Epson pigment Ultrachrome ink and burning


Autoxylopyrocycloboros (2006) took the form of a self-defeating journey in a small wooden steam boat, a circular, entropic voyage on the waters of Loch Long. The boat that made this voyage, a 20ft long clinker-built wooden craft called Dignity, was salvaged from the sea bed and restored fully by its previous owner. Fitted with a single cylinder, marine steam engine, Dignity served as both vessel and fuel for Autoxylopyrocycloboros as, piece-by-piece, plank-by-plank, the boat was fed to its own engine's boiler. Like the age-old alchemical symbol for eternal renewal, the Ouroboros (the tail devouring snake) the boat, in an attempt to keep moving, consumed itself and ultimately returned to the deep waters of Loch Long, Scotland, home to the Trident submarine base and neighbouring peace camp, the boat thus inevitably disappearing into the submarine infested depths of the Loch.


*1967 in Epsom, United Kingdom | Living and working in Copenhagen, Denmark