Deus ex Machina: Furniture, Appliances, Sculpture, Sound

About the exhibition
Deus ex Machina brought together a diverse group of designers, artists and engineers whose work—spanning furniture, appliances, sculpture, sound and moving image—shared a common concern with the relationship between humans, machines and technology in the late twentieth century.

Set against a backdrop of increasing technological presence in everyday life, the exhibition was not a celebration; rather it was an attempt to come to terms with what remains an uneasy alliance. It drew on a broader cultural atmosphere of technological anxiety, referencing dystopian visions in film (Blade Runner, 1982; Terminator, 1984; Brazil, 1985), literature (J.G. Ballard, William Gibson), and architecture (Philippe Starck, Shin Takamatsu).

The exhibition was co-curated by Dominic Lowe, Paul Schütze and Michael Trudgeon, all of whom also contributed works. Other works included Zap, 1989—a ten-minute video work by Liz Stirling and an untitled watercolour by Robert Owen.

MUMA Online Exhibition Archive
MUMA’s online archive is expanding. We welcome your feedback and input. Please contact muma.communications@monash.edu with any information that could help enrich the archive for future audiences.

^{Image: Arthur Hammond, Semi-Lunar 1939 (detail), gelatin silver photograph, 26 x 34.3 cm. Brooklyn Museum, New York, United States. Gifted by the artist}