Roger Hiorns’ Untitled sculpture consists of a car engine covered in bright blue crystals, standing on a metal structure. Hiorns placed the engine inside a tank filled with a copper sulphate solution, resulting in stunning crystals fixing on its surface. Hiorns has created a number of crystalized engines. He often places crystalized objects with the engines. He started placing crystalized cathedrals made of cards with the engines, progressing to spotlights, then boots and books. These objects form a representation of what the engines would need if they were human beings. As such, the added elements make the crystalized engines into beings.
These works exist in a line of copper sulphate crystalized objects in Hiorns’ oeuvre; he crystalized, among others, thistles, cardboard architecural models, more car engines and even an entire London appartment for his 2008 project Seizure, commissioned by Artangel.