For some people on the internet, the American muscle car died with the launch of the Mustang Mach-Efor others it will come when the Dodge Charger Daytona will roar onto our streets in the coming months. For artist Jonathan Schipper, it actually happened almost a decade ago when he premiered this installation that crashed two American classics along with ridiculously slow speeds.
The art installation was called “Slow-Motion Car Crash: Slow Inevitable Death Of American Muscle” and followed a similar long-form piece that had “Slow-Motion Car Crash: Slow Inevitable Death Of American Muscle.” A VW Golf crashed into a wall. For the piece, Schipper set up two Pontiac Firebirds so that they would crash into each other head-on at incredibly slow speeds.
The two cars collided every day at a speed of just one inch, meaning it was so slow that you couldn’t see the movement with your own eyes. As they crashed into each otherThe front end of every car buckles under the forces, just like at high speeds.
The piece was first introduced in Chicago and at its launch Schipper had this to say about car accident in slow motion:
A car crash in slow motion highlights speed and danger. The audience is free to touch the object and what is happening and examine it in detail. The speed has been removed, it still remains present in the work like an erased De Kooning. The energy is still transforming metal and glass, but at a tectonic pace. The molecules push each other individually and in their mass they push the order towards entropy.
Not only do we get a front row seat, we get something even better – we get a lens that expands time. What would normally happen in just an instant is now almost too slow to comprehend. We see a moving object that appears to be static. We have the leisure to look at the crash from all angles. The drama and danger are gone and we have a three-dimensional time machine.
Whether you think it’s a three-dimensional time machine or a great analogy for it Demise of the American muscle carThere’s no denying that the piece makes for ridiculously captivating viewing.
The piece premiered back in 2009 but is still seen regularly in various forms around the world. It was most recently exhibited at the Arsenal Contemporary Art exhibition, where it smashed together two vintage Mercedes models.