Erosions

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2025

Erosions is a sculptural installation where lava stone boulders are eroded by artificial agents. The work draws inspiration from the ancient Eastern tradition of scholars’ rocks, natural stones subtly shaped by human hands and revered as objects of aesthetic contemplation. Partially carved to emphasize their formal or chromatic qualities, these rocks hover in the liminal space between the natural and the artificial. Quayola revisits this tradition to create sculptural forms through a new algorithmic gesture.

Amorphous blocks of magmatic rock, formed through lava flows that have stratified over hundreds of thousands of years, are carved by a robotic arm. Erosion becomes the result of a digital simulation, a subtractive process both artificial and mechanized. 

The slow metamorphic evolution of lava stone, inherently transformative by nature, is thus accelerated. Mechanically engraved, the boulders become hybrids, fusing their geological temporality with a computational one, and emerging as new objects of contemplation.

Artwork by Quayola
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Produced by Quayola Studio and Ranieri
Alessandro Petrone (tech research)
Maria Elena Brugora, Giulia Olivieri (production and logistics)
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External Collaborators
Software Development:
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Developed with the support of Ranieri