Isolation in Fragmented Landscapes
2019
Installation:
– Six single-channel high-definition digital videos, 12:15 minutes, (each, looped), 16:9, colour, silent
– Two pigment prints on Hahnemühle cotton rag, framed, 150cm x 150cm (each)
– MP3, stereophonic digital audio file, 33:02 mins (looped)
Edition of 6 + 2 AP
I was fortunate to be awarded a funded residency, commission, and exhibition at PLAN8T in Changsha, China. PLAN8T is a prototype of vertical community living, and (fittingly) the focus of the program was to explore and conceptualise a future sustainable urban space—a space that merged technology, nature, and society. This is a complex topic that could easily plummet into an abyss of apocalyptic pessimism (the awe-inspiring inescapable complexity of the capitalist economic system, irreversible climate change, or global catastrophes), or worse, into the void of utopian optimism of futurism (space conquering humans, interstellar colonies, or technologically (re)engineered humans). I wanted to transcend the rhetoric that dominates discussions of the future and instead explore—on a semi philosophical level—the abstraction of infinite possibilities. I pursued a (nonetheless flawed) neutral middle ground—the tyranny of the Golden Mean. This meant that visually, I was interested in creating abstract landscapes that were unordered when viewed up close, yet slightly more ordered when observed from a distance—sceneries that sat somewhere between real and imagined landscapes. The aim was to emphasise the algorithmic nature of the digital terrain (pun intended).
The installation will be presented at PYRA Festival 2.0 ‘The City of Post-Humanity’ in Changsha in the exhibition By The City (在城边) during the months of September and October 2019, Shanghai during the month of November 2019, and Changsha during the month of October 2020. Detailed views, as well as exhibition photos, can be viewed below:
Isolation in Fragmented Landscapes #1 // Isolation in Fragmented Landscapes #2
2019
Pigment prints on Hahnemühle cotton rag, framed
150cm x 150cm (each)
Edition of 6 + 2 AP
Detailed view:
2019
Single-channel high-definition digital video
12:15 minutes (looped), 16:9, colour, silent
Edition of 6 + 2 AP
I’ve always wanted to name an artwork as head nod to Radiohead’s album OK Computer, which TV on the Radio alluded and gestured to with their demo OK Calculator—and this work (finally) felt like a fitting enough degradation of technology to achieve that dream. Go me!
Exhibition view:
Preview night:
Rolling Landscape Truism #1
2019
Single-channel high-definition digital video
5:00 minutes (looped), 16:9, colour, silent
Edition of 6 + 2 AP
Rolling Landscape Truism #2
2019
Single-channel high-definition digital video
5:00 minutes (looped), 16:9, colour, silent
Edition of 6 + 2 AP
Rolling Landscape Truism #3
2019
Single-channel high-definition digital video
5:00 minutes (looped), 16:9, colour, silent
Edition of 6 + 2 AP
Rolling Landscape Truism #4
2019
Single-channel high-definition digital video
5:00 minutes (looped), 16:9, colour, silent
Edition of 6 + 2 AP
Something Borrowed and Something Broken
2019
MP3, stereophonic digital audio file
33:02 mins (looped)
By The City (在城边) exhibition poster:
PLAN8T:
Memories and moments (the most precious and beautiful thing we have):
