Separation (2017) Digital video, Copper, Silver
A ring created through chemical processes that involved passing electrical currents through Cold War-era electronics, symbolizing the transformative act of extracting value from discarded materials. Rare metals were refined from e-waste and transformed into objects, including rings. These artifacts are part of a larger project titled Aesthetics of Capital.
The work also draws upon alchemical traditions, incorporating elements such as a copper coil reminiscent of the orator’s tools. The relationships between copper, silver, and lead—historically associated with transformation and symbolic meaning—are central to the narrative. Lead represents the raw, unrefined material, while silver symbolizes an intermediary state of purification and reflection, embodying the progression toward refinement and transformation. These connections link the extraction and refinement processes to themes of value and metamorphosis.
“Currently, Froslie’s work is oriented by an effort to make a ring. […] Such extraction — including refining procedures that extract more and more the thing desired, increasing its purity — removes something deemed valuable from something deemed valueless so as to separate what has worth from what does not and to come thereby to possess it. A classic technique of primitive accumulation, the capitalist method for appropriating wealth by dispossessing others of it, extraction is the initial point at which things enter into the economy, and Froslie, getting at the roots of his own material as an artist, makes of extraction a foundation for his efforts to produce his work.” - Robert Bailey, 'Extract, Grow, Circulate: Pete Froslie and the Aesthetics of Capital'
