Electric Chair

Inspired by 18th and 19th Century romantic courtship chaise longue; as well as inspired by Andy Warhol’s Sing Sing silkscreen, Electric Chair (1971); Neo Pop Artist Ultra Violet invents: a judgment seat, "A Twin Execution Electric Chair", “An Electric Loveseat”, "A Puritan Love Chair."

One chair has the epitome of violent light in a red nuclear explosion bringing death. The other has a luminous heavenly sky where the dead may sit resting in peace (embedded LED are the sources of light). This conception examines the 21st Century, romantic trends where love and courtship rituals and practices are minimalized or bypassed, as well as capital punishment policies where the death penalty persists as a shocking procedure sanctioned by Church and State.

18th century courtship chair

Warhol's Electric Chair 1971

Cloning and grafting these two functional chairs creates a high-voltage visual installation which questions the dichotomy of contemporary romance and love, correlating it to the “gypsy moth” relationship of the executioner and the executed. Ultra Violet’s electronic “sweetheart-settee” considers whether it would be more convivial to die having eye-to-eye contact with another.

Love and death are part of the marriage vow; “To love and to cherish, till death do us part.” The obvious love and death connection signifies the saving grace of love for the condemned, the out-laws and the in-laws, the yin and the yang, the two sides of the chair, the opposition in all things, the duality and binary contraposition simultaneously reveals one and the same proposition. Death and resurrection hover as a constant paradigm over the human soul.