Automatic Ruins — Colin Lyons

Automatic Ruins (2009-2013)

Automatic Ruins explores industry through the lens of fragility and impermanence. Fusing printmaking, sculpture, and chemical experiments, this project considers the possibilities after obsolescence, as well as the nature of what we choose to preserve. In these works, the etching process is pushed beyond its traditional boundaries, as a re-enactment of the rise and fall of industrial economies.

This project was born out of the impulse to give industrial artifacts the historical continuity that they were missing in the archives. It is essentially, an act of making ruins; an attempt to accelerate the natural processes of time and erosion in order to re-imagine decades of stalled history. In Automatic Ruins, historical artifacts are replicated using zinc etching plates, and then submerge in a copper sulphate etching solution. Through this process, the artifacts are gradually eroded from within, while an organic copper coating transforms them into almost unrecognizable mounds. This process evokes an alchemical creation of time, memory and historical aura.

Automatic Ruins was produced with the support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation

Image: Automatic Ruin #4, zinc etching plates, copper sulfate, plexiglas, 2010.

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Automatic Ruins #1-25, zinc etching plates, copper sulfate, galvanized steel, 24" x 90" x 90", 2012.

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Photo: Paul Litherland

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Archive, photoetching, chine colle, 30" x 90", 2012.

Photo: Paul Litherland

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Unfinished Ruins (Pumps), zinc etching plates, copper sulphate, plexiglas, ferric chloride, steel, 90" x 84" x 30", 2012.

Photo: Jerry Mann

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The Alchemist, zinc etching plates, copper etching plates, zinc sulphate, copper sulphate, cast tin, electrical wire, plexiglas, galvanized steel, 60" x 120" x 36", 2012.

Photo: Steve Lyons

The Alchemist is an electroplating machine powered by the etching process itself. By submerging my copper and zinc plates into an etching solution, the chemical reaction forms a battery that simultaneously erodes the plates while also working as an electroplater. Each day, this piece copper-plates a small tin fragment, cast from my Automatic Ruinexperiments, lending a precious quality to these gnarled bits of metal.