​Higher Consciousness Integrating Calculators

Date: 2016/17
Materials: Found Abaci, Gold acrylic paint, Cast concrete
Dimensions:  ​Various sizes 

​The repurposing of everyday objects with esoteric functions is a common theme in Gillespie’s work, unifying the physical and spiritual worlds. Sculptural objects are offered as artefacts from fictional histories. Higher Consciousness Integrating Calculator 1, was brought back from a future time, where humans have had to evolve spiritually to survive colossal environmental damage to the earth.
 
The painted patterned abacus take on a new function in the artist’s fictions as a device to calculate human spirituality, aiding seekers in their quest for transcendence. There is an absurdity to this union, how can spiritual enlightenment be measured in numbers? And yet one thing remains certain, the laws of mathematics like the spiritual, remain true and infinite between universes, unlike physical matter. Many believe mathematics to be an integral part of ultimate reality.