Silicon Age consists of a pure silicon ingot or boule, using a special process to obtain 99.99999% pure single crystals. On one side, the image of the first monolithic silicon integrated circuit chip, invented by Robert Noyce in 1961, is engraved as a bas-relief. On the other side, the crystal comes to a natural end, in the physical form of the ingot, at the point where it cannot get any smaller. The work alludes to the game-changing fact that, by the start of the 21st century, the traditional chip circuitry made of silicon had become too microscopic to work reliably, ending at the same time both the infamous Moore’s Law (regarding the number of transistors in an integrated circuit) and the unofficial silicon age.

Bio

Maarten Vanden Eynde is an artist from Belgium. He graduated in 2000 from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam (NL), participated in 2006 in the experimental MSA^ Mountain School of Arts in Los Angeles (US) and finished a postgraduate course in 2009 at HISK Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Ghent (BE). In 2017, he was nominated for the first Belgian Art Prize and won the Public Prize. In 2024, he received a PhD from the University of Bergen in Norway for his research project Ars Memoriae, The Art to Remember.