Don't Let This Be a Record of Our Time

King Cyrus of Persia or ‘Cyrus the Great’ is credited with writing the first human rights charter, which he had inscribed on a stone cylinder and placed as a foundation stone of a main temple when he conquered Babylon in the 6th century BC. In this project, I use a 3D printer and sandstone to recreate the cylinder – which in its modern iteration is inscribed with the Wikipedia entry for The Avenues Mall in Kuwait, translated into cuneiform.

Writes Robert Kluijver, who commissioned the piece, "The artist has translated trite yet trending topics and promotional material from Gulf social media directly onto 3D printed ‘stone’ in ancient Arabian script with the hope of reviving interest and investment in the Middle East’s ancient past. These new inscriptions go directly from the printer into a museum display case, as a commentary on how slowly the ethics and values of world civilization have evolved, despite huge leaps in technology."

Commissioned for the Crisis of History exhibition
curated by Robert Kluijver for Framers Framed and Tolhuistuin – March 2015, Amsterdam, The Netherlands