Carpet Diem II
Dimensions
35x200x70cm
Carpet Diem II, a wordplay on Carpe Diem features a digitally printed fabrication of an arcade carpet. Designed to be a faithful analogue to classic arcade carpets it utilises colours and symbols prevalent throughout the exhibition such as falling coins, coin pusher machine, golden nugget, golf holes and queens head, among others.
Presented curving onto the floor from a pole it shares language of a photography backdrop, with flowing curtains, or perhaps the last remnant in a carpet warehouse.
Closer inspection reveals that the carpet texture is falsified, printed onto a smoother surface, a facsimile of itself, it asks questions about authenticity and replica, about reality and experience. Removed from it’s supposed context in an arcade it loses something of its experiential reality, like the replica Avebury megalith or the ceramic ‘super fun tyre’.
The carpet design is topped with another representation of a coin pusher swathed in gold paint, it sits like a crown jewel on a velvet cushion projecting value and importance.