David Carlin
I approach the äutöshøw from a different background than Lori and Dermot.
I have always been interested in the automobile; and as a child, drew and styled my own imaginary cars — cars to rival the great marques of Ferrari, Porsche, and Jaguar!
At 16, I was entered in my first car rally and by 20, was heavily involved in circuit racing at venues such as Mosport and in rallies such as the International Canadian Winter Rally. I continued to participate in auto sport as a driver, co-driver and as a director of events such as the North American Championship Voyageur Rally until my last races in 1996 on the ice arenas of the Ontario Ice Racing Championship.
Although I still have a passion for motor sport, I now view the automobile from a very different perspective. It is a perspective that is, in part, nostalgic but at the same time recognizes the facts of aging and of changing times. Secondly, it is a perspective that increasingly reflects upon contemporary social conditions affected by the global automobile industry such as pollution, transfer of employment from one economic domain to another and poor working conditions.
For me, the automobile is all about speed, performance, and design — design which
Is meant to defeat or modify natural laws and create the least and/or modified resistance.
Automobile marques were a source of personal identification and national pride. The Germans had Porsche, Mercedes Benz, the Americans had Ford, the Swedes had Saab, the Italians had Ferrari and Maserati. In the present world of increasing globalization, corporations created their boardroom designs to defeat or modify, not natural laws but to defeat or modify resistance from all competitors, by eliminating or modifying them by controlling their stocks.
Like the adoption by ancient Egyptian deities from conquered kingdoms; corporatists can utilize technology from the vanquished as their own and, the conquered either disappear into history or represents another product of extreme difference. The Swedes have Saab — a Saab controlled by General Motors whose parts are made in other countries of the world by cheaper labour.
The following works are comments on intentions of corporate states within the automobile industry, and the result of their actions. My images are drawn from oral and written myths, physics, history and from contemporary social conditions. Evolved from these topics are mixed media pieces dealing with human elements of power, greed, degradation, change, beginnings and hope.