Background and Interpretation In 1998, tiring of moving quickly from one project to the next, Spiller embarked upon his ongoing long project,
Communicating Vessels, an artistic and literary paracosm which Spiller has variously described as '
autobiograph[ical]', As of 2018, Spiller estimated that there are approximately 1000 drawings associated with the project. The name
Communicating Vessels is an allusion to
André Breton's
Les Vases Communicants (1931). At the project's inception, Spiller drew inspiration from Daneil Liberskind's
Chamber Works (1983), Michael Webb's
Temple Island (1987), Ben Nicholson's
Appliance House (1990) as well as the prose of
Francesco Colonna's
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499), intending to design his project's spaces and objects to reflect motifs of
Surrealist art and theory.
The Boy and the Professor As well as being a vast series of drawings, the
Vessels project is also a literary one: Spiller interpolates sections of creative prose into his academic writing when discussing his work. Many of the characters of 'The Island of Vessels' are inspired by
Greek mythology, or are themselves Greek mythological figures such as
Hermes,
Hectate and the
Minotaur (also a reference to Breton's journal
Minotaure). Central, however, is 'the Boy' and his dealings with 'the Professor', a creator figure that Spiller has likened to the 'Juggler' or 'Handler of Gravity' in
Marcel Duchamp's writings on
The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1915–23). Spiller has likened both the Boy and the Professor to himself and this is suggested in his prose. For example, the Professor is written as wearing
cowboy boots and Spiller has mentioned that the Boy is
asthmatic, with both being features of Spiller's own character. Spiller produced many works based on his memories of Woods at this time, such as a series of approximately 25 drawings titled
Walled Garden for Lebbeus (2013). The design of the Garden partially references
Aldo Rossi's Cataldo Cemetery.
The Longhouse In 2015, Spiller began to design the Professor's house, called the Longhouse. Spiller visualises the space as a
prytaneion on the Island of Vessels, where the internal logics of Spiller's world are at their most schizophrenic.
The Dee Stools The Dee Stools (or Trunks) are Spiller's response to the
Elizabethan court alchemist
John Dee and the fact that he is reported to have hidden his texts in a chest. The Stools are likely surreal redesigns of the fishing stools along the River Stour that Spiller remembers from his youth. They are six in number and covered by a '
Futurist cloak', in reference to
F. T. Marinetti's
Sudan–Parigi (1921). The Stools contain a painting machine in reference to Jarry's depiction of a clinamen as a painting machine in
Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician (published posthumously, 1911). According to Spiller, other allusions are made to
Georgio de Chirico's
The Disturbing Muses (1925), as well as the teeth paver and artificial lips from
Raymond Roussel's novel
Locus Solus (1914). Most visible are the allusions to Duchamp's
Bicycle Wheel (1951),
Étant donnés (1966) as well as the 'draught pistons' from
The Large Glass. The painting machine within the Stools is designed to splatter paint onto Surrealist poetry, creating new permutational verses determined by which lines are touched by the paint. This is a reference to the writing techniques associated with the
Oulipo sub-sect of Pataphysicians.
The Baroness The Baroness is an
id-like ruler the Island of Vessels and is an homage to the
Dadaist artist
Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, whose sculpture
God (1917) is a major influence on Spiller, cited regularly in his lectures. The Baroness is also partially inspired by the Bride of Duchamp's
The Large Glass, both being characterised by
electromagnetic filaments.
Holy gasoline The Island of Vessels is characterised by reflexive technological elements, which cybernetically correspond. Spiller imagines this space as being powered by a nanotechnological grease, made up of
protocells, which is also referred to as 'holy gasoline' in his writings. 'Holy gasoline' is an allusion
Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction's 1988 song of the same name. The material is flammable and drawn to the Baroness.
Prose Style The prose associated with Spiller's
Vessels project is as referential as his drawings but a smaller proportion of it is published. In a lecture delivered at the
Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in 2008, he read frequently from his writings on the Island of Vessels. In the below passage, Spiller alludes to Freytag-Loringhoven's sculpture
God, the
Vorticist movement and
Jacob Epstein's
Rock Drill (1916):The Professor stood before us in a quiet and considered way. He spoke of extraordinary things. He motioned behind him to what looked like a robotic
lynching hanging from a strange, otherworldly bower. He told us the sad story of Baroness and Pinky—the mutt-swine, the shittenhound. He lived nearly a hundred
Hogmanays ago in the city of collapsing towers. The Baroness blew holy gasoline and even at one point lived next to his non-retinal swiftness. She was known to light her tail with a
taillight and smelled and put her tits into tomato cans and wrote of her cast iron lover. He bayed us forward, asking us to be careful. Birds called in the hedgerows, it was such a fine day. We got closer to the Baroness, we admired her cathedral, her feather, her porcupine spine eyelashes and her circle of woman and marvelled at the U-bend of
God. Then with a far off gaze, the Professor spoke of the
Glass of two halves: one full of chocolate and cemeteries and the other with the cracked and cacked bride. He told us of masculine vibration and the baleful bachelors. He gathered himself up to his average height and, with all the theatricality he could muster, he said "ladies, gentlemen,
actuators and surveillance paraphernalia, including
geostats, for your predilection I give to you a vertiginous Vorticist
Rock Drill, driven to teetering ecstasy by the Baroness's glandular gasoline and her weapons of mass distraction".Spiller has mentioned his predilection for '
purple prose' in his both his academic and creative writing, likely in response to Surrealist prose. Many of the titles of his works bare resemblance to the long titles of many Surreal art pieces, for example, ''The Baroness's Filaments Caressing the Bulb of the Wheelbarrow with Expanding Bread Under the Disapproving Composite Eye of a Wasp'' (2008). == Personal life ==