Hammer Projects: Vibeke Mascini

In long-term collaboration with scientists, engineers, government employees, and musicians, Vibeke Mascini has produced sculptures, installations, video, and text that explore an understanding of electric energy as a statement of interconnectedness and entanglement – between species, media and nature, matter and energy.

Past projects have used unlikely sources of electrical energy, from the decaying carcass of a beached whale to electric eels, melting glaciers, and human remains to produce batteries that power eccentric kinetic objects. By exploring the complex relationship between source and user and focusing on the material implications of these unconventional sources of electricity, Mascini proposes installations where memories and mysterious sensorial experiences meet the newest technology of the rapidly growing field of energy storage systems.

For her Hammer Project, Mascini is working on a new installation in which electrical cables and aerial root systems intermingle by electroforming plants including ceiba trees and orchids. Electroforming is a meticulous practice in which a thin layer of copper is grown to cover other materials—rendering otherwise nonelectrical subjects into carriers of electricity.

Hammer Projects: Vibeke Mascini is organized by Pablo José Ramírez, curator, with Jennifer Buonocore-Nedrelow, curatorial assistant.

Hammer Projects is presented in memory of Tom Slaughter and with support from the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation. Lead funding is provided by the Hammer Collective. Generous support is provided by Susan Bay Nimoy and Leonard Nimoy, with additional support from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture. All exhibitions at the Hammer are made possible by the Hammer Exhibition Fund. Lead support is provided by Alice and Nahum Lainer. Generous support is provided by Carla Emil and Rich Silverstein, Christine Meleo Bernstein and Armyan Bernstein, and Bill Hair.