Being Played
World Chess Hall of Fame
January 24 – February 28, 2020
All work by Michael Drummond, 2019,
unless otherwise noted.
Being Played balances and explores three overarching themes — chess in strategy and form, the climate change crisis, and the concept of “predatory delay” — through the lenses of fashion and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. To represent the challenges humanity faces, Drummond uses a game from the film in which a human player, Dr. Frank Poole, competes against an unfairly advantaged opponent, the supercomputer HAL 9000.
“Predatory delay,” a term coined by futurist Alex Steffen, describes the blocking or slowing of needed change in order to profit from unsustainable, unjust systems in the meantime. In Drummond’s game, predatory delay is one opponent; we, the consumers and humans of Earth, are the other. Humanity’s pieces, rendered in gold, black, silver, and white, occupy the center of the gallery. Red signifies HAL 9000 and surrounds them on the perimeter — a state of emergency, and one of the earliest colors to appear on the chessboard.
The designs are named after the algebraic notation for the moves of a historical game played between A. Roesch and Willi Schlage in Hamburg, Germany, in 1910. As the game unfolds, a tension develops: our underdog, representing humanity, is conflicted within itself. In the film, Poole resigned. Here the narrative is ongoing. Our planet always heals itself, but are we accelerating an inevitable event? Will greed and fear lead the charge, or could beauty, honesty, justice, and action elevate us to the next rung of human evolution?
e4
Humanity’s first move. These shoes are decorated using shou sugi ban, a 16th-century Japanese technique of burning, brushing, and oiling cedar. The burning and laser represent fire, one of humanity’s earliest tools; the laser exposed carbon, an essential building block of all life. The male and female faces evoke Adam and Eve. They are men’s shoes, an allusion to Eve being created from Adam’s rib.
…e5
Nf3
This dramatic dress is created from deadstock bra underwire — materials overproduced by manufacturers that might otherwise go unused. The underwire overlaps to create an effect reminiscent of a knight’s armor.
Bb5
…a6
Ba4
…Nf6
Cast from fossils, Nf6 blends ancient natural elements with the manmade. “In my fantasies a world was created where fossils and meteorites became fossilized once again, but this time in our discarded artifacts. Meteorites are forged into jewelry, woolly mammoth’s fur is caught in a resin locket.”
Qe2
Bb3
…Be7
A necklace holding the fur of a woolly mammoth, an extinct creature returned as ornament. Ancient life caught in resin and worn against the body.
c3 (1)
Made after the 2016 election, c3 (1) takes the form of a corseted apron in the tradition of the French maid. It draws on two historical apron types once found in antique stores: the sturdy protective garment of labor, and the frilly decorative one. Here the White House is sublimated onto the body of domestic work, the seat of power suspended from a wire cage where a body should be.
…0-0
