ELLIOT FOX
THE BALLAD OF EN GENNICK
SPLIT RIVIERA ∙ SEPTEMBER 2025 ∙ LONDON
Solo presentation at Split Riviera (London), 2025. Moving image and sound work embedded into kinetic sculptural installation existing both internally and externally of the exhibitoon space, containing meterological and sonic recording equipment. Accompanying exhibition text courtesy of Kaius Owen.
The office, a brutalist behemoth of concrete and mirrored glass, a structure that has seen the rise and fall of countless corporations. A coastal mausoleum for faded industries, refitted for modern convenience. Still, somehow she feels at home, a sense of permanence and belonging. A sense of purpose. Her fingers graze the keyboard, barely having to press for the numbers to glow and swirl. The relationship is an intuitive one, she speaks the language and the machine hums in compliance. Between her and her creation, information passes seamlessly. The office is busy but only shadows pass behind her, voices rise and fall with the rhythm of the day. She forgets her body in the unnatural glow and the sun dips unnoticed. Below the office, below the rocky outcrop, waves crash in a ceaseless rhythm and the wind whips the shore. A field of sensors translate the sound, the velocity, countless aspects and degrees. A grey blanket of ones and zeros coats the night. A constellation to be interpreted and acted on in blind faith. Hers is a simple task, to make a face for a faceless company. A mask in the form of a mascot. A corporate logo, both cute and commanding. Her job feels shamanic - the conjuring of a spirit through processes that few understand, esoteric knowledge and cryptic symbols. She is to typify the vibe of a system, to personify the amorphous mass of impersonal processes that make up a multinational. She will make this energy company a household name, and she’ll do it with the help of a psychopomp, an archangel, a spirit guide. She wants to channel the slow passing of seasons, the deep crush of geology, the singing of timeless songs. She wants to mix the crumbling of one thing into the mortar of another. The name came naturally, as if from the wind whistling through the trees. A name that seeped through the soil as much as it grew from the branches of a lost lexicon - En Gennick.
She blinks and holds up her hand, fingers shading her eyes from the unnatural glare. It’s getting late.
The congregation is anyone who tunes in, anyone who’s recommended ads. The choir is a jingle, synthesised from pop hits and ballads of old. The church is a system of inflows and outflows, of expenditure and accumulation. En Gennick sings a siren‘s song, and we all plug in. One after another, a turbine whirs to life, carving circles day and night. Dams squat heavy in heaving waters and salmon lose their ancient rights, nurseries abandoned and forgotten. Energy is pulled up from the earth and out of the air. The slow crashing of waves and the tidal whims of the moon are harnessed and harvested. A thousand systems a thousand miles apart and they all smile the same smile. The ballad never changes, and En Gennick never ages.
She’s retired now. Her work long escaped her, run away capitalism having run away even from itself. She sits on a creaking vessel, oxidised and immobile. There are seagulls circling, day and night. Songs play on the radio but she hardly hears, countless iterations of the same sampled beats, a culture built on corporate memes, a dwindling pool evaporating in the increasing heat. She holds up her hand towards the setting sun, splaying fingers so that dappled rays warm her cheeks. En Gennick sings to a dwindling audience, the same song in a minor key.
Her body now sits in the rusting vessel, a skeleton housing many colonies. Time passes but in no particular order, moments scattered like pebbles on a beach. Beneath moss and lichen, ancient automated systems create content to be viewed only by their own sensors. Data banks stacked like cairns and standing stones, chatter quietly to themselves and all the spirits trapped within talk of subjects with no end. En Gennick’s ballad, once a story of success, now a confused lament.
The office is now a crumbling wreck. A silent outcrop for nesting seabirds. A structure that has seen the rise and fall of countless civilisations. And still the waves below crash against the rocks, and the winds whip the shores, whether we measure them or not.
Accompanying show text written by Kaius Owen.