Modern Times – A History of the Machine

Modern Times – A History of the Machine by mounir fatmi is a thought-provoking piece about movement, speed and time with graphics that seem inspired by the paintings of Sonia and Robert Delaunay, a Charlie Chaplin film, a Marcel Duchamp piece, calligraphy and philosophy.

“Modern Times” envelops the viewer. Images projected on the wall show architectural construction in the Middle East, creating an intense cinematic environment. The title of the piece “Modern Times” is inspired by Charlie Chaplin's celebrated 1936 film, in which Chaplin plays a lowly worker on a factory production line. The modernity of the factory's machines are visually characterised by a series of whirring cogs. Comic scenes show Chaplin being consumed by the machine; but these images suggest a darker side – the alienation of man in a modern industrialised society. The factory worker is swallowed up by the machine with which he can no longer keep up.

In his “Modern Times”, mounir fatmi engages with this modernity, which began in the 19th century in the West. The speed of industrialisation and the growth of cities is reflected today in the rapid development and urbanisation of the Middle East. Cities are appearing out of the desert, with buildings thrown up so fast that there is no time to reflect on the changes. This mental link between Western industrialisation and recent Eastern development manifests itself in “Modern Times” in the interactions between the different elements of the installation.

The  projection creates a layer of ambiguity, with the curves and arabesques of the calligraphy eclipsing the meaning of the words, as if the message were disappearing into the engine of the machine. The words are reanimated in a purely visual way as circular abstract forms, reflecting the circular motion of the installation.

The circular forms are also a nod to modernist painters Sonia and Robert Delauney and Fernand Léger. The repetition of circular and geometric forms in their paintings were an attempt to depict the modern world, as mounir fatmi's installation is a way of grappling with the continuous and seemingly endless motion of 21st century production and consumption.