WORK: singularity

“An individual need only possess a single sponge during the span of his or her lifetime. The sponges neither wear out nor diminish in absorbency. Most of the original models are still in circulation. Nathaniel inherited his from his father, who had previously acquired the sponge from Nathaniel’s grandfather. [ . . . ] The sponge compacts all that it absorbs into its core. Such is its efficiency that the area occupied by the compacted matter gains no measurable increase in volume during the course of a generation. Nathaniel envisions a future in which a sponge passed down a bloodline eventually accumulates, after many centuries, so much human detritus that it collapses into a shit singularity, and ultimately devours whole solar systems.”  

2011. Ink on paper. 7 x 7.25 in.

This image-text pairing originally appeared on VerySmallKitchen as part of a 3-month online residency.