No Sound of Water acts as a simulated mineral landscape, as a physical embodiment of the way technology has transformed our relationship with nature and the land, a vast salt plain evoking a lunar landscape leading to a larger-than-human mechanised cascade of salt.

Still dwarfed at a distance, and supported by a distant rushing sound, the saltfall is blurred, silky smooth, bright white. On moving closer, contrary to what one may expect, it’s appearance doesn’t get any clearer and making us wonder and search for clues as to what its real make up may be.

There are three main elements to the installation: The salt plain leading towards the cascade, the cascade itself, and a large LED display presenting a computer animation of a furry robot falling what appears to be the last tree on Earth. All three elements are conceptually equal to one another, intertwined and interdependent, forming a union that comments on the fickle relationship between human and machine, nature and technology, coming together as one immersive work that manipulates our sense of scale, sound, movement, smell and touch.

The expanse of the landscape and the time it takes to cross it to reach the saltfall plays an important role in unfolding the different layers of the installation. It provides a gradual change for the visitor from the initial position as an external observer to becoming an inherent part of the work by walking through the plain. It acts as a filter by which reality is a simulation and technology is the lens through which we experience and interpret another, yet equally true, version of the world.

At one end of the gallery, a two dimensional view onto the cascade opens up and gives way to an actual bodily experience. The process of walking itself is tangible through noise, smell and taste. The salty air gradually gets dryer as one comes closer to the cascade, the sound of the rushing, flowing, colliding granular fluid, becomes louder and overtakes the crunching sound of salt beneath your feet.

The mechanism that is tasked with the sisyphean pursuit of hauling the salt from ground level to the top of the cascade, just to capture it and move it up again once it has descended, contributes to semantic reading of the saltfall, anchoring its origin in the man-made extractive technologies. The machine itself has been entirely developed and design by Troika over the course of 3 years, and is capable of re-circulating up to 30,000kg of salt per hour.

The saltfall is placed in diametral opposition with another machine, a large LED display half buried in the salt. 

Both the materiality and purpose of these two machines complete one another: the saltfall accomplishing the motion of salt, rendering the crystalline matter mobile, while the display, and its LED made of salts, shine light onto the scene.

The title No Sound of Water refers to T. S. Eliot’s poem ’Wasteland’.

Written in the aftermath of the First World War, Eliot’s poem describes the disorganization of society and the role of technology and industrialization in Western civilization.

Terminal Beach is a 4 min long computer animation film for which we used custom motion capture to record the movements of a person swinging an axe and cutting down a tree.

This motion was transferred to a production robot arm, dressed in long dark hair. The result makes the robot look uncannily animalistic or even human, reminding us of a large ape-like creature chopping down what we thought of as the last tree on Earth.

In the futuristic end-time scenario, the robot brings to an end what mankind began long ago – the continuous destruction of our planet. In a world facing the ravages of climate change, with people on one extreme feeling fear and on the other plain apathy, the piece triggers new complex emotional responses. The actions of an almost comical yet aggressive robot contributes to the feeling of desolation evoked by the landscape in a dystopian world.

We chose the title Terminal Beach, both in reference to JG Ballard and as we feel it is more evocative, while pointing at the logical conclusion of the act presented in the work.

The work was inspired by the re-reading of a text by Theodore John Kaczynski, “Industrial Society and its Future” - the Unabomber’s manifesto. While the text is rightfully highly controversial for its rightwing positions, its wide ranging simplifications, and most importantly for being the motivation behind Kaczynski’s numerous act of terrorism, it does propose a pretty irrefutable demonstration of the dangers of AI, showing that humanity is on the course of becoming subservient to its own creation, and relegated to a life of meaningless idleness (paragraphs 171-179). Little known is that Kaczynski was also the youngest assistant professor of mathematics ever nominated at Berkeley University, a man noted for his atypical analytical intelligence.

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"Troika were struck by what they see as an explicit link between these ideas and the quest for efficiency and profit of late capitalism, the rise of automation, and the ecological crisis we are facing, whilst our obsession for industrial growth will only accelerate the destruction of our environment. Hence the desolation and the central figure of a robot, which may one day replace human labour because it is conveniently cheap and emotionless. This blending of the real and unreal takes a further twist towards the uncanny with the British based artistic trio Troika’s video piece Terminal Beach (2020). An industrial Kuka robot covered in fur chops down the last tree a desolate landscape with an axe.

The fur accentuates its movements and makes the violent action of the robot seem comical and alluring. It is uncanny in Freud's analysis of heimlich and unheimlich - a liminal piece that is familiar yet sinister at the same time. This piece evokes very complex and new emotions that yet are to have definition as the viewer watches the robot's relentless and repetitive actions, which are leading to the destruction of nature and environment.

The further twist in the tale is that the robot that was animated for this piece was trained to do this by the artists. The robot is merely following orders-given by humans whose actions have contributed to the climate crisis we are now in".
Ariane Koek