Thomas Jefferson is said to have chosen to leave abolishing slavery to the next generation. He was wrapped tightly in it's coils and not ready to fully engage it mentally or morally - but clearly he believed it was inhumane. The same attitude is still alive in dominant society today - especially here in the US. For generations we have put emphasis on freedom to wander and that has gotten us entangled in fossil fuels because cars are the modus operandi for this. And like Jefferson and his slaves, we are not ready to let our cars go, though we know we should/must as fossil fuels and the continued extraction will seal our collective doom. Infrastructure, economy, romanticism, cultural identity - $$$ to roads, contested gas pipelines, dumping serious $$$ into vehicles with terrible MPG to express and experience this eternal myopic American Dream that is propelling us toward oblivion - it is difficult to think too deeply about it but we must...
We visited the Petersen Automobile Museum in Los Angeles a few days ago. I wasn't quite sure how I would relate to this glorification of seemingly innocuous but monstrous machines, being inherently repulsed by this nationalistic love affair but at the same time living it. Part and parcel to the expressed reality - owning a car and driving ridiculous distances for work and for pleasure. This would express/magnify my contradiction and inspire guilt - this generally creates discomfort.
There is definitely art, beauty and amazing ingenuity expressed in this machinery. The idea of cramming the power of 900 horses into a 12 foot long rectangle of gleaming chrome or graphite is surreal. As is seeing on display a vehicle built in 1914 that was all electric - and hybrids from the same decade. Steam powered, hydrogen, solar... So much eclipsed ingenuity throughout the decades with so much $$$ entangled in the fossil fuels. So much emphasis on high octane at the expense of all else...
all images ©Bennett Barthelemy November 2016
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| A James Bond Car and the Batmobile |
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| The van from Little Miss Sunshine... I have owned two VW vans, a 72 and 78. The "People's Automobile" |
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| Car that appeared in ZZ Top videos |
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| Carbon fiber, 900 horses |
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| The Petersen did a decent job I though sharing the comparisons of technology and fuels |
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| I had no idea that the Buggati family had such a legacy in the automobile world |
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