Futility Index
2020
Digital photographs, sculptures
Futility Index playfully explores physical and philosophical approaches to the concept of balance. Fleeting moments between certainty and doubt parallel the inescapable brevity of stability and biological life. The bizarre yet unrelenting determination to reach equilibrium encourages one to consider unusual methods of innovative problem-solving and instil an appreciation for tension, absurdity, and wonder.
The Futility Index photo series depicts the limitations and possibilities of physical balance. Utilizing an array of household, industrial, constructed, and natural materials, Emily Promise Allison intricately balanced and photographed hanging assemblages. The details of each assemblage were considered with an utmost regard for authenticity meaning that nothing in the composition was altered in post-production. The resulting artwork is a collaboration between the artist and natural forces, as gravity demands the size, weight, and position of the item to be added next.
Futility Index bears a resemblance to another photographic series, Equilibres (1984-86) by Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss. Fischli and Weiss similarly balanced household objects in unexpected and precarious compositions but while Equilibres used items like bottles, tape rolls, and chairs, composed of items in the studio or the workshop, Emily’s series differentiates itself in both its seamless presentation and inclusion of natural materials, deliberating on an inability to reach permanent balance.
Emily’s use of a tomatillo, a branch, or a rose suggests that each balancing sculpture is temporary. As time passes and the leaves whither and vegetables rot, the natural exchange of matter and forces will eventually topple each sculpture. Although the works depict intricate balance, they draw from Emily’s appreciation for the tense, unstable, and absurd forces within each of us. If each photograph is really a sign of futility, the quest to strike a permanent and stable balance in our psyche, emotions, or lives is really the futile act.
Adam Whitford, Curator