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Amitai Romm

Influencer Sarcophagus 3, 2017, steel, polystyrene, neodymium magnets, acrylic glass, acrylic mirror, UV heating lamp,
green cardamom pods, black cardamom pods, earplugs, dimensions variable. Photo: David Stjernholm

Amitai Romm is a dowser for the postapocalyptic generation, using This veering between the archaic – invocations of stargazing
magnetic rods and 3D printers to divine how we might survive in or ancient methods of orientation – and the constantly receding
a hybrid ecology. The Danish artist’s drawings, sculptures and horizon of new technologies is characteristic of Romm’s work. A full
installations are understated fantasy, evoking a landscape within wall of nine of the Parable dishes overlooked his more recent show
which salvaging scrap metal, analysing algae DNA and drawing are Hibernation, at the library space Tranen in north Copenhagen, though
all equally necessary activities. Romm reasserts the work of the artist here each was punctuated by a trilobite fossil. Scattered on the floor
as a form of science-fiction proper: a meeting of two realms of experi- throughout the building were a series of low polystyrene boxes, titled
ment – science and fiction. Sarcophagi, offering an alternative form of library: the pleasing scent
I first encountered Romm’s work after stumbling into his 2016 of the star anise, cardamom or cinnamon that sat in some of the boxes
show how shall the sea be referred to, at Bianca D’Alessandro gallery in being distributed by small ventilation fans, or in others mace spray
Copenhagen. An incongruous series of small framed photogravure or plastic earplugs imbued with synthetic grapefruit oil. The draw-
images on worn notebook-paper were all that hung on the walls: ings here seemed to illustrate Romm’s vision of a possible future more
two layered drawings that looked like depictions of densely over- directly, peopled with humanoid figures sprouting countless tubes
grown greenhouses, another a childish portrait of a sea-monkey- and complex organic machines producing who knows what gloop.
like figure. Covering the gallery’s skylights was Blind/Compass Romm also works within the group Diakron, an assemblage of
(2016): two tarpaulins, each weighed down with puddles of water artists, designers and thinkers, who have set up Primer, an exhibition
and a Laserdisc, that sizeable, outdated format for home-video series hosted on the premises of the biotech company Aquaporin in
buffs of the 1980s and 90s, with a tiny hole drilled into it and, the the Copenhagen suburbs, positioning their group shows – which mix
list of materials informs us, a small spherical magnet. In another things like medieval biblical woodcuts, midcentury-modern designs
room, a pair of large steel discs, Parable (2016), dominated the room, and contemporary art – as a form of exploratory research that might
ungainly satellite dishes with burn marks gathered around their benefit those in a lab coat or an artist’s smock. Among these various
centres. The cumulative effect was quietly unsettling and ambigu- activities is an open-ended looking that isn’t focused so much on where
ously intriguing, leaving us to orient ourselves in a space that felt we’re going as on summoning the spirits in science and the atoms in
uprooted and somehow timeless. art, and embracing the tentacled chimeras we create along the way.

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