Ford with us I (feretory)

2014 · Mixed Media including original spark plug for FORD Model T · 19 x 19 x 31 cm

The President made another sign of the T and sat down. The service had begun. The dedicated soma tablets were placed in the centre of the table. The loving cup of strawberry ice-cream soma was passed from hand to hand and, with the formula, »I drink to my annihilation,« twelve times quaffed. Then to the accompaniment of the synthetic orchestra the First Solidarity Hymn was sung:

Ford, we are twelve; oh, make us one,
Like drops within the Social River,
Oh, make us now together run
As swiftly as thy shining Flivver.

(…)

As verse succeeded verse the voices thrilled with an ever intenser excitement. The sense of the Coming‘s imminence was like an electric tension in the air. The President switched off the music and, with the final note of the final stanza, there was absolute silence – the silence of stretched expectancy, quivering and creeping with a galvanic life. The President reached out his hand; and suddenly a Voice, a deep strong Voice, more musical than any merely human voice, richer, warmer, more vibrant with love and yearning and compassion, a wonderful, mysterious, supernatural Voice spoke from above their heads. Very slowly, »Oh, Ford, Ford, Ford,« it said diminishingly and on a descending scale. A sensation of warmth radiated thrillingly out from the solar plexus to every extremity of the bodies of those who listened; tears came into their eyes; their hearts, their bowels seemed to move within them, as though with an independent life. »Ford!« they were melting, »Ford!« dissolved, dissolved.

Aldous Huxley
Brave new World (1932)

Ford with us I (feretory, detail)

2014 · Mixed Media including original spark plug for FORD Model T · 19 x 19 x 31 cm

The President made another sign of the T and sat down. The service had begun. The dedicated soma tablets were placed in the centre of the table. The loving cup of strawberry ice-cream soma was passed from hand to hand and, with the formula, »I drink to my annihilation,« twelve times quaffed. Then to the accompaniment of the synthetic orchestra the First Solidarity Hymn was sung:

Ford, we are twelve; oh, make us one,
Like drops within the Social River,
Oh, make us now together run
As swiftly as thy shining Flivver.

(…)

As verse succeeded verse the voices thrilled with an ever intenser excitement. The sense of the Coming‘s imminence was like an electric tension in the air. The President switched off the music and, with the final note of the final stanza, there was absolute silence – the silence of stretched expectancy, quivering and creeping with a galvanic life. The President reached out his hand; and suddenly a Voice, a deep strong Voice, more musical than any merely human voice, richer, warmer, more vibrant with love and yearning and compassion, a wonderful, mysterious, supernatural Voice spoke from above their heads. Very slowly, »Oh, Ford, Ford, Ford,« it said diminishingly and on a descending scale. A sensation of warmth radiated thrillingly out from the solar plexus to every extremity of the bodies of those who listened; tears came into their eyes; their hearts, their bowels seemed to move within them, as though with an independent life. »Ford!« they were melting, »Ford!« dissolved, dissolved.

Aldous Huxley
Brave new World (1932)