Quintillion, a collaboration between JD Beltran and Nigel Poor commissioned by the ZERO1 Biennial exhibition "The Future, Imagined," combines photography, sculpture, and installation. Making use of a collection of insects found over a yearlong period, each fly is photographed, printed at various sizes 1 1/4 - 2 1/2” (circular prints) and face mounted to plexi. The 287 Flies, each in its own Petri dish like casing, are scattered on walls surrounding a pedestal. Sitting on the pedestal is a large crystal ball, through which one views these same flies morphing into and out of each other, along with other imagery.
The flies watch over the space and work as a reminder that we, and our ideas, are temporary. In the 14-25 days that a female fly lives it is capable of producing 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 eggs, (quintillion) an incomprehensible number, as hard to make concrete as the notion of eternity. Long after an idea has been expressed, has had its moment, and becomes part of the past, flies will still be producing their progeny at this mind-bending rate. These insects work as a reminder that we, too, will pass and become obsolete. Yet, given this irrefutable knowledge we persist. There is nothing more important than what we are and yet there is nothing more inconsequential. Nigel Poor and JD Beltran are using this project to reflect upon how our brains take in information and process seemingly impossible concepts.