Narelle Desmond, Autotimer, 2023. Photo: Benjamin Sheppard. Courtesy: the artist and FUTURES, Melbourne.

FUTURES presents Autotimer by Narelle Desmond, her first solo exhibition with the gallery, which is part of Melbourne Design Week.

Situated within the context of contemporary art, Desmond’s practice is dispersed with tropes of twentieth-century design which provide a source of inspiration and critique. Autotimer continues this mode of inquiry by transforming the gallery into a waiting room populated with incongruously designed features and signage that both celebrate and probe their own forms and functions.

Influenced by the speculative works of Radical Italian Design groups such as Superstudio and Gruppo UFO, Autotimer meshes these countercultural perspectives with contemporary commentary. The installation takes the setting of a non-place space – a term used to refer to spaces of transience where human beings remain anonymous­ – such as airports and freeways. A suite of anti-utopian objects that direct our actions are playfully displaced through distortion, rendered peculiar and mute with seductive flair.

“Design attempts to script the future by projecting its desires (and those of others) forward in time,” wrote Andrew Blauvelt. In Autotimer this attempt is celebrated and thwarted through a disruption of place and objects. If the purpose of this room is to wait, what are we waiting for?

Opening Event: Saturday 20 May, 4 – 6pm.

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