After completing his BA in ‘Interactive Arts’ at Manchester Metropolitan University, Austin Houldsworth went on to study ‘Design Interactions; at the Royal College of Art, London.
Through his work, Austin strives to create solutions to the problems that are often neglected by industry. His work often involves chemical reactions, which have been a recurring part of his process.
A 4m-tall prototype ‘Fossilisation Machine’ commissioned for the 2010 Tatton Park Biennial, built to produce a fossil from one of the estate’s glasshouse-grown pineapples.
The machine guarantees the natural process of petrification; 2500 litres of water become highly mineralised as they flow through calcium rich limestone, the public contribute to the process by pumping this water to the header tank, which then flows over the Pineapple and slowly transforms the organic matter into stone.
The ‘Fossilisation Machine’ will work during the Tatton Park Biennial, which runs from the 8th of May to the 26th of September.
Interview about the project:
www.we-make-money-not-art.com
Fossils are like books written by the hand of our planet millions of years in the past. They allow a glimpse into long-lost worlds offering insights and charging the imagination with images of what once roamed our planet. Unfortunately human control over the natural environment has, in most places, taken away the natural potential for the creation of a fossil; burials create the perfect environment for decay and its unlikely that human remains will last.