Antigenic Rift

Randy Polumbo
Antigenic Rift, 2020
Quartz crystals, hand silvered mirror, reflective highway beads, hand-blown glass elements, epoxy, steel, and structural foam
156 x 96 x 54 inches

Artist Statement
Science first considered the virus a poison, then a life form, and today a microscopic parasite that cannot survive outside of a host body. For the planet earth, are humans alive or are we an opportunistic infection or rash? Is the earth living, or is it a rock hurtling through the dry vacuum of space? Even stones in the desert are animated with the behaviors of life from a distant timescale, slowly grinding together, giving birth to sand that will one day be pressed together again into rocks. Humans are the prey of this tiny organism from “inner space.” Being part of its food chain galvanizes people into cohesion and concert… an agent for change. With appendages that detect, and then, connect intentionally, what is the nature of this relationship? The line between parasitic and symbiote may be messy; nature does not follow rules, although its patterns sometimes suggest it does. Perceptually, there is always an interpretive continuum, whoever records history… wins.