Created by Lorenz Potthast at the University of Arts, Bremen, The Petroglyphomat is a mobile, computer operated milling machine, that can send messages to a distant future by engraving them into ancient monuments. The project is designed as a strategical reaction to the technical and financial boundaries which normally limit the possibilities to communicate a message to the future. Lorenz's idea is to use long existing, important places which most likely will also exist for a long time in the future as infrastructure and expand them with a new communication layer. The machine creates snapshots of our increasingly digitalized environment by converting pixel-based, iconographical symbols into modern stone engravings (petroglyphs).
The Petroglyphomat is the outcome of a detailed research which is documented in the accompanying book “Communication with the Future”. On a theoretical level the book investigates the historical formation of the concept of a future and the origin of the human desire for perpetuate existence . Also it analyzes existing attempts to conserve communication for a long time, gathers the thoughts and conclusions which led to the concept of the Petroglyphomat and documents its development and usage. The whole project offers a substantial theoretical background and an experimental approach for practical philosophizing about the connection between tradition, transience and our understanding of past, present and future.
