On view: November 15, 2019 until the Millennium Tower is fixed or torn down
The Tower at SFAI—Chestnut Street Campus
Opening Reception: Friday, November 15 | 5–8pm
The art collective Postcommodity presents The Point of Final Collapse, a sound installation and broadly conceptual work that focuses on the sinking Millennium Tower, responding to a scenario of capitalism contributing to the development of new conceptual frameworks of risk and accountability—as a building falls, its value rises. Postcommodity will engage the perspectives of a broad public by providing a call to prayer for relief from the economic stresses and dangers of a city in the throes of radical social, cultural, architectural, and economic transformation.
The installation uses computational algorithms that parse data representing the movement of the Tower. This movement data is then mapped to healing ASMR audio and soothing binaural beats, transforming the sonification of the sinking and tilting of the Millennium Tower into therapeutic sounds designed to encourage relaxation by extending the power of the city’s scenic beauty. Long Range Acoustic Devices, installed in the tower at San Francisco Art Institute’s (SFAI) historic Chestnut Street Campus, will subtly broadcast this indeterminate and generative multichannel sound composition to North Beach and downtown San Francisco for a 4-minute duration each day at 5:00 pm. The Point of Final Collapse renders legible the logics of capitalism, which encode fear, desire, and the inability for the greater public to rationalize and control systems of power.
The Point of Final Collapse broadcasts daily at 5:01pm from the tower at SFAI’s Chestnut Street Campus—go to Stockton, between Chestnut and Francisco streets, to experience the 4 minute hyper-directional sweet spot.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Postcommodity is an indigenous art collective composed of SFAI Art + Technology Chair Cristóbal Martínez and Kade L. Twist. Postcommodity’s art functions as a shared indigenous lens and voice to engage the assaultive manifestations of the global market and its supporting institutions, public perceptions, beliefs, and individual actions that comprise the ever-expanding, multinational, multiracial and multiethnic colonizing force that is defining the 21st Century through ever-increasing velocities and complex forms of violence. Postcommodity works to forge new metaphors capable of rationalizing our shared experiences within this increasingly challenging contemporary environment; promote a constructive discourse that challenges the social, political and economic processes that are destabilizing communities and geographies; and connect Indigenous narratives of cultural self-determination with the broader public sphere.
The collective has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including: 18th Biennale of Sydney in Sydney, AUS; 2017 Whitney Biennial, New York, NY; documenta14, Athens, GR and Kassel, DE; and their historic land art installation at the U.S./Mexico border near Douglas, AZ and Agua Prieta, SON.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Postcommodity is the recipient of the 2019 Harker Award for Interdisciplinary Studies, that supports artists-in-residence at SFAI. The Harker Award was established through a generous bequest by artist and SFAI faculty member Ann Chamberlain and is administered by the San Francisco Foundation. Past residents include Alejandro Almanza Pereda, Katrin Sigurdardóttir, and Michael Jones McKean.
SFAI’s Exhibitions and Public Programs are made possible by the generosity of donors and sponsors, including the Harker Fund of The San Francisco Foundation, Institute of Museums and Library Services, Grants for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Work Fund, Koret Foundation, Pirkle Jones Fund, Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, and Fort Point Beer Company. Ongoing support is provided by the McBean Distinguished Lecture and Residency Fund, The Buck Fund, and the Visiting Artist Fund of the SFAI Endowment.
PRESS COVERAGE
KQED Arts | December 11, 2019
If the Millenium Tower Falls, Does it Make a Sound?
SF Chronicle | November 16, 2019
What does the Millennium Tower sound like as it sinks? These artists have an idea
Hyperallergic | November 12, 2019
Drawing Attention to a Sinking High-Rise in San Francisco
The Architect’s Newspaper | November 11, 2019
Postcommodity amplifies sinking Millennium Tower in new audio installation
Art & Education | November 4, 2019
Postcommodity: The Point of Final Collapse
SFIst | October 24, 2019
Sound Art Installation Simulates the Sinking and Tilting of Millennium Tower
KQED Arts | November 11, 2019
The Millennium Tower Becomes Sound Art
The Art Newspaper | October 28, 2019
Postcommodity plays the soundtrack of destruction in San Francisco
Curbed SF | October 23, 2019
Sound art installation simulates sinking of Millennium Tower
Image: The Point of Final Collapse. Image by Postcommodity. Courtesy of San Francisco Art Institute.
