Molybdomantic Scenarios
Video
2 min (loop), no sound
2021
Molybdomancy (ger. Bleigießen) is a technique of divination using molten metal. Typically, liquified lead or tin is dropped into water to solidify in an unpredictable shape that is then interpreted. It allegedly originated in Ancient Greece and can be found as a tradition in various cultures, including Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Germany, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Turkey. In Austria, it is usually practiced on New Year’s Eve to predict the fortune of the coming year.
Molybdomantic Scenarios is based on a 3D scan of an object I poured on December 31st, 2020 around midnight. I used soldering tin and metal pieces of the insides of a smartphone, materials of the machines that provide a lot of the data many contemporary forms of algorithmic speculation and future prediction are based on. Reliquified and destabilized, the animated object is an attempt to find some form of expression of a feeling of uncertainty and instability, not only of what the future might bring but of the very foundations our speculations upon it are based on.