It is weird how we define friendships now and how Facebook comes into play. Now life is a tangled mess of reality and virtuality, it never matches up. one of our lives tends to be a faulty simulation of the other. Take Facebook, usually a great way to stay in contact with your friends... but what about those people we have listed as friends, but we barely say anything to in real life. Those faces in the hallways who would rather cower in the corner or pretend to not recognize you. Maybe my memory is just different than most, but I tend to never forget a person and can remember with great detail first impressions.
During freshman orientation, I had a very brief conversation with someone who was entering as a film major. He told me about his favorite films and then I ended up talking about The Decemberists, because I was wearing one of their shirts... but after that conversation we never ran into each other and barely spoke. when I finally saw him again, I remembered the entire conversation, and was able to even come up with his the name of his hometown (which is an incredibly small town in ruralia). Even after re-introducing myself two years later, we still do the pretending game.
Maybe "friending" each other on Facebook would remedy those moments of pretending but it is not really a path I would like to explore. It does not bother me to not be Facebook friends because we are not even at the level of passerby "hello" exchangers in the hallways. This is where my curiosity comes into play with other people. The idea of discovering at my own leisure with minimal effort the intricacies of someone's personality, or how they like to portray themselves virtually makes companionship seamless at times.
When the situation is the complete opposite and I am Facebook friends with someone who has essentially stopped our friendship in reality I hesitate to cease our virtual friendship as well. Both of us keep the virtual connection between us after things have obviously changed. It also feeds the monkey of curiosity on our backs when seeking out updates on each other's lives could be drastically uncomfortable otherwise.
With the information page and the idea of a wall of conversation, history of interests, important events, etc. comes the immediate display of similarities in music taste, movies, activities, and interests without any true interaction. Thus leads to the beginnings of information obtained through reality vs virtuality; and more importantly how we handle the knowledge obtained with online investigation rather than conversation. The options are to bring it up virtually and therefore display the method by which it was discovered, or to casually mention it through some desperate attempt to find similarities or to dig for further information without worry of being too much of a creep.
Therein lies my biggest conundrum. I have such a problem with digging for information, and though it could easily be remedied by saying, "Oh, I saw on Facebook... blah blah blah" I withhold information and begin to feel at times like a corrupt defense attorney during discovery. Maybe it would be easier to condense my facebook to the people I regularly interact with but sometimes the thrill of easily obtained gossip or scandal is just too damn fun.
Solid atmospheric ambient electro jazz! Initially I couldn't understand where this album's sound came from. I thought they had such a good diving platform to jump from with In Rainbows, their obvious trend towards using electronic sounds and filtered vocals was really at a high point, so I was expecting something sort of insanely magnificent synthetic quality in their sound for The King of Limbs. After listening to it twice through I realized that it was just another turning point in their style.
"Bloom" - Opens up with mostly electronic sounds, very fast paced... has a feeling of jazz that is not really present in older Radiohead sounds. Bloom does not demand your immediate energy like their last album's "15 Step", but it feels more like a gradual evolution and introduction into their sound. Part of Radiohead's artistry lies in their ability to evolve in every album they send out, sure there are some overlapping themes - Thom Yorke's keening emotive voice, creative use of drum-like beats, spooky ambient ghost like bits waning in the backgrounds, and the poetic lyrics that you can't really understand (literally because of his accent/style and also figuratively, they are pure genius) - but each album is so distinct.
"Morning Mr Magpie" - Sounds like something from maybe Hail to the Theif - like "Where I End and You Begin", but someone jacked up the speed and complexity by layering different sounds on top of each other. Solid track, but what's with the 25 seconds of static feedback at the end?
"Little By Little" - Wonderful song! "I Might Be Wrong"-esque with similar beats and the rolling build up of guitar, even the way Thom Yorke is singing sounds somewhat comparable. The transitions in this track are surprising, and the mess that is created as more instruments come into play makes it incredibly handsome. This song sounds so mischievous and deviant, I love the energy! The lyrics sort of reminds me of maybe opening pandora's box, but the way they seem to be directed towards someone it feels like it's one sinner talking to another, or two people who are giving up themselves for greed and the typical 9-5 jobs. The variety of interpretations make it intriguing to think about.
"Your clue on hold, snapped up
Crawling with my love
The last one out of the box
The one that broke the seal
Obligation
Complication
Routines and schedules
Drug and kill you
Kill you"
"Feral" - Sexiest song of 2011. A feral organism is one that has escaped from domestication and returned, partly or wholly, to a wild state and that is exactly what this track captures, it feels completely organic. The bass creeps into the sound every now and again, Thom Yorke's voice staggers throughout giving you glimpses of lyrics but not complete thoughts, mixed with undulating beats and lighter vocals... it's sort of what I imagine someone on ecstasy experiencing in the form of a song.
"Lotus Flower" - I think this track is the first "single" from the album, mostly because there's already a video out. It's a beautiful piece of music, but just one thing... the clapping? the clapping is a bit cheesy for me, but the bass and vocals definitely carry it along. Thom Yorke might be saying to open up like a lotus blossom you have to listen to your heart.
"Because all I want is the moon upon a stick
Just to see what it is
Just to see what gives
Take the lotus flowers into my room
Slowly we unfurl
As lotus flowers
All I want is the moon upon a stick
Dance around a pit
The darkness is beneath
I can't kick the habit
Just to feed my fast ballooning head
Listen to your heart"
"Codex" - seems like a filler, uninteresting piano, sorta uninspired lyrics. Below are the entire song's lyrics.
Sleight of hand
Jump off the end
Into a clear lake
No one around
Just dragonflies
fantasize
No one gets hurt
You’ve done nothing wrong
Slide your hand
Jump off the end
The water's clear and innocent
The water's clear and innocent
"Give Up the Ghost" - Beautiful ambiance throughout the piece. I feel like the track is sort of a mantra about giving up something that could haunt you, like the loss of a loved one, the turmoil experienced after a break-up, negativity in general, something of the like. This piece feels very wise, like a good friend giving you advice when you're in emotional danger.
"Gather up the lost and sold
Gather up the pitifull
What seems impossible
I think I have had my fill
I've been told to give up the ghost"
"Separator" - Wonderful ending piece, I felt like it really linked the entire album. the wailing vocals mixed with the funky drum beats and the jazzy bassline blended the sounds of each track together beautifully. With the trance-like dulcet guitar interjections and the lyrics referring to waking up from a dream, it just feels like meditating. Most of the songs on this album are about letting go, love, realization, separating the ego from the superego, and metaphorically death and reincarnation.
"It's like I'm falling out of bed
From a long, blue dream
The sweetest flowers fruits are hang from trees
Falling off the giant bird that's been carrying me
It's like I'm falling out of bed
From a long and weary dream
Just exactly as I remember
Every word
Every gesture"
after playing a round of Sporcle where the object was to find the most common words used in the English language we created a poem using the order of the words we missed.
time just him take
into year your some
could other than then
now look only it's over
think.
also back, use our first way
even new because any give day.
Saving lives from cancer starts one team, one participant, and one dollar at a time. Our Relay For Life Team is doing our part to make sure that cancer never steals another year of anyone’s life.
Please join our team or make a donation. The impact we can make together is much greater than what any of us could do alone!
Tonight I watched Boyz 'n The Hood for the first time. A few years ago I saw Juice and a few other 90s black community films, mostly because my brother owns Don't Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood which parodies movies of this genre. Boyz 'n The Hood captures life in South Central L.A. following the life of a group of black boys coming of age in the mid '80s to the early 90s; focusing heavily on black on black violence, racism from the police, gentrification, but also the strength of friendships, family, and the community.
Before the opening scene of Boyz n the Hood, two messages flash across the screen: "1 in 21 American black males will be a victim of murder." and "Most will be killed by other black males." The reason why this movie is successful is because the characters are so fleshed out, every performance is executed impeccably well - there are times when the bond between Cuba Gooding Jr.'s character and his character's father played by Laurence Fishburne feel so real that it made me realize how much I wished my father and I could have become that close and open with each other. Fishburne is the perfect role model for his son, and though their characters are only 17 years apart he maintains a stern but positive reinforcement to help his son become a man with a promising future. At one point in the film Fishburne takes him to Compton to explain to him the horrors of gentrification, and the presence of drugs or guns in every black neighborhood.
"I'm talking about the message. What it stands for. It's called "gentrification." It's what happens when property value of a certain area is brought down....They bring the property value down. They can buy the land cheaper. Then they move the people out, raise the value and sell it at a profit. What we need to do is keep everything in our neighbourhood, everything, black. Black-owned with black money. Just like the Jews, the Italians, the Mexicans and the Koreans do.... How you think crack gets into the country? We don't own any planes. We don't own no ships. We are not the people who are flying and floating that shit in here. Every time you turn on a TV, that's what you see. Black people selling the rock, pushing the rock. It wasn't a problem when it was here. Wasn't a problem until it was in Iowa...and on Wall Street where there's hardly any black people. If you want to talk about guns ...why is it that there's a gun shop on every corner here? I'll tell you why. Just like there's a liquor store on every corner in the black community. Why? They want us to kill ourselves."
The monologue is one of the more heavy set of lines in the film, but the action throughout the plot is absolutely gut wrenching. Some of the scenes cause a similar physical reaction to the domestic violence scene in The Godfather. Hearing someone wail with their full body evokes a different response than a powerful set of words. The situations the boys get caught up in are devastating, and I noticed a trend in their responses to the murdering or presence of guns.
The characters never flinch, instead of ducking for cover when they saw guns their bodies instantly went into either the best defense is a good offense routine or quick, run into that alleyway. If someone was shot, everyone mobilized into assuming that another character was going to get revenge through more violence or attempting to protect someone from doing so. Seeing the way they dealt with the situation was shocking at times, but it just shed light on how these moments of brutality were part of their everyday life.
What a dreamscape! It must have something to do with the painting's dimensions being designed according to the golden ratio (you know, the one in The Da Vinci Code - 1.618:1) because the subject matter happens to be rather dark. The painting, by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, depicts a fictional moment in the life of the Roman emperor Elagabalus, also known as Heliogabalus. Elagabalus is portrayed attempting to smother his unsuspecting guests in rose-petals released from false ceiling panels. A peculiar event, to die from something beautiful like that.
Neat fun fact about this painting: As it was painted during the winter, Tadema arranged to have roses sent weekly from the French Riviera for four months to ensure the accuracy of each petal. Reminds me of Damien Hirst's massive intake of butterflies each year. Artists are so bizarre!
Today we tend to overlook the buying of people, and continue to be auctioned off with our experiences of life within the education system to fill a quota. - anonymous e-board member of the African Latino Society
Just a few moments ago, I was literally auctioned off during the African Latino Society's fund raiser, "Taking Back The Block" which will give all proceeds towards Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panthers, coming to Ithaca. Their event at first shocked me, I thought, "Hmmmm... selling bodies and services for money, isn't that an awful lot like the slave trade?" but after experiencing it I realized that it was the purpose of the auction; to start a dialogue about the education system and the potential problems with academia's capitalist agenda when regarding race and expectations/control by means of scholarships. Sure, people were not engaging in spending money to kill another human being through forcible work, or discriminate as a result of attempting to look diverse which often happens in academia and but it was an interesting, thought provoking affair.
As the individual being sold it was a terrifying experience (this is not to say I have in any way an idea of what it would be like to be sold as a slave that is not what I mean at all- that would be irrationally disproportional). Just getting on stage for me is just a few steps away from panic attack or collapse from leg failure but having to get up there in the bright lights with a room full of people watching and listening to me sell myself... it was just bizarre. My legs were shaking, my head sorta spinning, but my voice did not falter. I was able to even joke a little bit... when someone asked, "How long of a massage are you offering to give?" I replied with a quip, "It depends on the body part **sassy face**." Overcoming stage fright has been a long term goal of mine and doing it in front of an audience of strangers was uplifting to say the least, especially considering the cause... what an opportunity! To have Bobby Seale breathing the same air as myself. Jeez!
My concerns with academia are well rooted in my overall feelings toward capitalism in general. It just destroys me to think sometimes that money is such a powerful force that people are continually punished for something so meaningless. Money has little to show for itself. Consider where it comes from, a family generations ago could have benefited hugely from the slave trade and then they pass that money on through inheritance to the next generation, so on and so forth until today where their great great grand-kids get to go to a private college which they pay completely out of pocket, worst situation... but nonetheless accurate. Therefore, what is the point of allowing education to be disproportionately easier for the people who have money? If a student has money, they are not forced to work outside of academia to maintain their lifestyle. They do not have the stress of worrying about their grades to carry them through college if they do not have scholarships that are dependent upon GPA or participation in several activities.
I feel that higher education is a born right, and should be equally attainable. What is the remedy? TBD???
Here's "Chicago" by Crosby, Stills, and Nash which references Bobby Seale and the Chicago 8. It has a bit of the history of the situation in the video portion of it as well as the audio track and stock footage.
This song has a great positive energy. Can you just imagine yourself in the audience shouting, "Higher! and higher! and higher! and higher! and higher! and higher!" I bet Passion Pit has a wonderful time on stage too, I can see them now bouncing around with huge grins on their faces with confetti all over the place a la The Flaming Lips. They would all be wearing skinny jeans with t-shirts that look straight outta Urban Outfitters too. I bet they would also preach about Global Warming and changing the world.
What a hot mess of privileged white highschool boys. Let me just say this, during the set-up of a concert don't start a mosh pit or crowdsurf. Sure, at some concerts you could totally do that when the show has started when the music is energizing... but not during the random play-lists for setup.
When it gets to the point where I have to constantly watch out for falling bodies it has gone too far. At the GZA concert tonight high school boys were causing complete mayhem and instead of punching someone's kidneys like I wanted to I ended up literally pulling a kid down from the overhead crowdsurfing position, got in his face and said, "You need to cut that shit out, it's fucking retarded!" This was before the somewhat horrible opener who I believe had lyrics like, "V.T. Money! V.T. Money! Na-na-na-na-naa!" There's just something really passionate about hip-hop and rap that I think some artists lack, no matter how hard they try.
Part of the concert experience is to blend with the crowd and become a homogeneous flowing pool of bodies, but when I felt like the oldest person in the room excluding the artists in front of us my position shifts from having a great time to being pissed off because of the juveniles surrounding me. Hip hop an art form that expresses the frustrations of society and race, class, politics... real heavy shit. When someone's greatest concern in life is finally growing chest hair or losing their virginity I just cannot believe they can truly appreciate the depths of the lyrics. I think you have to suffer a little bit to have some real passion and true understanding of hardship, and looking around me tonight I felt like I was surrounded by a mess of white inheritance progeny.
It was such an uplifting time compared to my last experience with him on stage, where he was OPENING for GIRL TALK. What kind of crazy city do we live in when someone who is being sampled by the headliner opens the show... when someone is used in a mash-up by Girl Talk it is because they are clearly so insanely famous/recognizable that sampling from them justifies their good musicianship but also establishes a hierarchy of fame. If you're curious about where and what tracks this happens *check this out!* If you sync up the videos so that Girl Talk's "What's It All About" is at 2 mins 30 secs, and Wu Tang's "C.R.E.A.M." is at 27 secs you can hear the sample used. Anyway, somehow Cornell University had their shit mixed up, and allowed Girl Talk to supersede the natural order of life.
Regardless of all of the crazy bullshit, GZA performed so well. He really pumped up the crowd by playing solid tracks, and crowdsurfing himself or walking in the mess of people. At one point he staged a rap battle amongst some of the audience members... one of them had the balls to take a sip from his drink, which didn't go over well at all, obviously. However, after battling to get to the front I lucked out and he actually pulled me towards the stage holding my hand, then cupped my cheek in his hands. I nearly died being so close to the Genius himself. What an amazing night.
If yall want to check out a really interesting interview from 2002, where the Genius sat down with Kevin Beacham to discuss the path to Wu-Tang and the origins of a great MC *click this link!*
When I lived in London I drew the first installment of this series. It was created during a surprisingly boring British Popular Music class, and was made after realizing how much I missed people from the states. I started thinking about making several of them of all my friends, but after creating Beth's portrait the idea fizzled out. This was a crazy week, the stress of the semester and some ridiculous drama was getting the better part of my mind so the need to create something bubbled up. I love trying to capture the essence and physical likeness of the people who inspire me, and though these portraits might be more amusing if you know the subjects... For me it has been an introspective experience, despite the fact that I am clearly exploring other peoples' lives. It intrigues me to think about why I see people in certain lights, and tend to fixate on only certain aspects of their personalities. In hindsight it makes me wonder if I only see people as a reflection of myself and therefore are all of my friends just extremities of my own personality. I am not sure, anyway... ENJOY!
In all seriousness, I think about family a lot and how fluid of an idea family can be. In London, it took only one conversation for me to be able to mentally address my flatmates as my family away from home. Just thinking about how we all were okay immediately with the idea that "everyone poops... and we all have our alone time" really made me realize how fortunate we were. With almost any other group of 5 college aged women I think we probably could have made them vomit within minutes, and that is exactly how I like it.
A year has passed since the 5 empresses of West Brompton lived under the same roof, but while we were apart we remained a solid bunch. It really takes dedication and strong love to make friendships transcend the thousands of miles our lives can separate us at times. Though we are no longer living together, I still feel that solid connection exists between us, like that giant cable under the ocean joining the US with Europe.
Remember that scene in Donnie Darko where those bizarre wormhole like tubes were guiding people through life? I would like to think that there is another aspect of us, more specifically our hearts and our passions that guide us, and if we just had an extraterrestrial way of looking at the world we might be able to actually see what pulls at our heartstrings. A tangible, visual representation of our true emotions. Imagine the situations that would come up... no longer could we lie to ourselves about how we feel. Chilling, no?
I realize this is a pretty cliched post, but I was feeling pretty sappy and was a bit of a mushpile.
This exhibition is meant to explore the causes of the destruction of man through the perspective of a post-apocalypse realm. The beginning of the exhibition is meant to represent the hours following the apocalypse, the birth of a world without humans and then you see the landscape. Familiar locations from present day that have been returned to the wild, entropy of nature prevailing as human exposure is completely removed. From there you explore possibly destructive characteristics of the post-modern world including Commercialism, Global Powers, Artificial Intelligence, International Arms Races, and Biological Technology. Once exposed to the horrifying trends of our present situation, the viewer is taken to a room where they are presented with a view of a micro-population of human beings. Reflective and suggestive, Global Uncertainties is meant to leave you with an insight on how certain negative human impacts have jaded the world, but has also caused their entire existence to be shattered as a result.
Dawn of a New Earth:
Lafur Eliasson
The Weather Project
Mixed Media; light, mist, etc.
Dimensions varied
In this installation, The Weather Project, representations of the sun and sky dominate the expanse of the entrance to the Saatchi Gallery. A fine mist permeates the space, as if creeping in from the environment outside. Throughout the day, the mist accumulates into faint, cloud-like formations, before dissipating across the space. A glance overhead, to see where the mist might escape, reveals that the ceiling of the entrance has disappeared, replaced by a reflection of the space below. At the far end of the hall is a giant semi-circular form made up of hundreds of mono-frequency lamps. The arc repeated in the mirror overhead produces a sphere of dazzling radiance linking the real space with the reflection. Generally used in street lighting, mono-frequency lamps emit light at such a narrow frequency that colours other than yellow and black are invisible, thus transforming the visual field around the sun into a vast duotone landscape.
Eliasson’s impressive installation draws attention to the fundamental act of perceiving the world around us. But, like the weather, our perceptions are in a continual state of flux. The dynamic variations in the composition of the ephemeral elements of The Weather Project parallel the unpredictability of the weather outside, which despite the efforts and sabotage of humankind still remains beyond our control.
Olafur Eliasson was born in 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark of Icelandic parentage. He attended the Royal Academy of Arts in Copenhagen from 1989 to 1995. He currently lives and works in Berlin.
A Few Mornings After:
Lori Nix
City (2006)
Color photography prints
Most are 24" x 21", one 8" x 25"
Lori Nix is an American photographer whose principal theme is disaster, an interest developed during her childhood in rural Kansas when floods, tornadoes and other natural disasters seemed to occur with frightening regularity. A '70s trend for disaster movies seemed to complement this reality, and likewise provided a formative influence. In Nix's series City (2006), meticulously crafted scale models reveal the ravages of unspecified cataclysm. Although the photographs could, momentarily, be mistaken for factual records of real-life disaster, a self-consciously cinematic quality enables viewers to quickly ascertain their fictive status.
Nix carefully 'directs' her shots through elaborate framing devices and clever juxtaposition: the auditorium of a crumbling theatre is photographed as if from the stage, while in another image the gaping walls of a Natural History Museum reveal glimpses of the outside world alongside dioramas of taxidermied beasts. In keeping with these cinematic qualities Nix's post-apocalyptic vision is filtered through popular imagination, fulfilling its demand for cataclysm tinged with a glimmer of hope. Whatever catastrophe has engulfed the city, Nix is anxious to show regenerative nature at work. Plants reclaim the urban environment and animal life is glimpsed in otherwise forlorn spaces. Perhaps, in the best traditions of Hollywood, human survivors lurk somewhere in the ruins, ready to embark on the building of a new and better world.
Commercialism
James Hopkins
Design for Life, Black Still Life, and Last Days of the Sun, 2007
Mixed media
230 x 180 x 35 cm, 235 x 173 x 30 cm, 222 x 176 x 32 cm
Vanitas, a genre of painting particularly popular amongst 16th and 17th Century Flemish artists, focuses on the transience of life, the certainty of death and ultimate futility of earthly pleasure. UK artist James Hopkins' reworking of the theme depends, like all his work, on a visual sleight of hand which here transforms items stacked on shelves into a grinning skull, the ultimate symbol of impending death. The moral significance of the vanitas is cleverly updated to focus on the decadence of contemporary lifestyles, with champagne bottles, disco balls, and technological gadgetry all playing a part in the symbolism of the assemblage. Although Hopkins' tricksy art is beguiling and playful, it resonates with far more sombre sub-texts. Life is precarious, replete with illusion. The only real certainty is that it must come to an end.
Born in Stockport, Cheshire, UK, 1976 Lives and works in Guernsey and London
MA Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 2001–2002 Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 2000–2001 BA (Hons) Fine Art Sculpture, University of Brighton, 1995–1998
http://www.jameshopkinsworks.com/index.html
Oskar Dawicki
Armageddon
Polish artist Dawicki's spoof on newspaper obituaries is imbued with characteristically grim humour. The dozens of assembled names clearly resemble those of well-known personalities ranging from pop stars to politicians, despite their 'Polish' spelling. Dawicki's piece is titled Armageddon, and a glance at the dates on the obituary cuttings confirms the fact that all Dawicki's quasi-celebrities died on the same day. Despite its absurdity, Armegeddon fulfils the function of a sobering momento mori since, on one level, it is inevitably prophetic.
1971 born in Warsaw
1991-1996 studied at the Plastic Arts Department of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in ToruĊ
Lives in Warsaw.
Boo Ritson
Chips, Hotdog and Cup, 2009
By the Roadside, 2009
The Diner Waitress, 2009
Large Scale Color Photography
At first sight you are convinced they are sculptures; hunks of manipulated clay, or moulded metal coated in liberal layers of thick, tutti frutti-coloured paint. They could be unwanted mannequins, dolled up for one last turn. When first encountering the seminal work of Boo Ritson - whether coming face to face with a neat and knowing air stewardess or being floored by a wall of oozing burgers - it takes a while to grasp that behind the juicy facade are actual objects: in most cases, living and breathing human beings.
Since graduating from the Royal College of Art three-and-a-half years ago, it has been the 40-year old's prerogative to transform the genuine into the hyperreal, aided by lashings of household emulsion. The results are photographed immediately after the paint has been swiftly yet painstakingly applied by Ritson and her assistant Rebecca Mears in her studio.
Born 1969
Lives and works in Amersham, UK
2003 – 05 Royal College of Art, MA Sculpture
1999 – 2002 Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College. BA Fine Art (First)
Biological Complications:
Berlinde De Bruyckere
Marthe
2008 Wax, epoxy, metal, wood and glass
280 x 172.5 x 119.5 cm
K36 (The Black Horse)
2003 Polyurethane foam, horse hide, wood, iron
Overall size 295 x 286 x 158 cm
Acclaimed Belgian artist De Bruyckere poignantly evokes pain, isolation and death, with particular reference to tragic episodes in history such as the Holocaust and World Wars. Her practice consists largely of sculpture and installation, for which she frequently employs mediums such as wax, wood, fabrics and hair.
Animal skins are also a common feature, particularly those of horses, which she strongly associates with scenes of battle and carnage. Her pieces look like some sort of evolved or regressed species shockingly similar to modern life. They are alien in form, but their structures and physical allusions are too familiar. They are the effects of war and destruction.
Born in Gent, Belgium 1964
Lives and works in Gent
Luke Jerram
Smallpox, HIV and an 'Untitled Future Mutation'
Blown Glass
8cm each in diameter
These transparent glass sculptures were created to contemplate the global impact of each disease and to consider how the artificial coloring of scientific imagery affects our understanding of phenomena. Jerram is exploring the tension between the artworks' beauty and what they represent, their impact on humanity.
Jerram said, "It's great to be exploring the edges of scientific understanding and visualisation of a virus. Scientists aren't able to answer many of the questions I ask them, such as how the RNA is exactly fitted within the Capsid? At the moment, camera technology can't answer these questions either. I'm also pushing the boundaries of glassblowing. Some of my designs simply can't be created in glass. Some are simply too fragile and gravity would cause them to collapse under their own weight. So there's a very careful balancing act that needs to take place, between exploring current scientific knowledge and the limitations of glassblowing techniques."
Global Powers:
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu
Old Persons Home
2007 13 x life size sculptures and 13 x dynamoelectric wheel chairs
Dimensions variable
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu are two of China's most controversial artists, renown for working with extreme materials such as human fat tissue, live animals, and baby cadavers to deal with issues of perception, death, and the human condition. In Old Person's Home Sun & Peng present a shocking scene of an even more grotesque kind. Hilariously wicked, their satirical models of decrepit OAPS look suspiciously familiar to world leaders, long crippled and impotent, left to battle it out in true geriatric style. Placed in electric wheelchairs, the withered, toothless, senile, and drooling, are set on a collision course for harmless ‘skirmish' as they roll about the gallery at snail's pace, crashing into each other at random in a grizzly parody of the U.N.dead, in this exhibition, alluding to the remnants of the global powers after the oncoming apocalypse.
Artificial Intelligence:
T.V. Santosh
Counting Down, 2008.
30 fiberglass dogs, steel, LED counters, LED strips, paint.
Dimensions variable.
Counting Down reflects on the horror of Hiroshima through the recollections of Yoshitaka Kawamoto, a survivor of the atomic blast who was thirteen at the time. In Santosh's installation, a group of thirty chrome dogs are arranged in a grid, sentries guarding Kawamoto's words which slowly scroll in three digitised displays at their feet. The dogs conflate various beliefs and mythologies associating the animal with death. In the Hinduism of Santosh's native India, the dog is seen as a messenger of Yama, the god of death, and guard the doors to Heaven. The ancient Egyptians depicted Anubis, guide and protector of the dead, with a jackal or dog's head, while the great dog Amt stood sentry at the gate to the lower world. Cerberus, the three-headed dog of Greek myth, guarded the entrance to hell. On the back of each of Santosh's dogs an electronic clock performs a silent, never-ending countdown, the flickering red digits reeling perpetually towards unspecified calamity.
Arms Race:
Kris Kuksi
Churchtank Type 7C, 2009
Mixed Media Assemblage
16" X 19"
Gertrude Von Howitzerhen, 2009
mixed media assemblage
21" X 29"
Kuksi’s art speaks of a timelessness–potentiality and motion attempting to reach on forever, and yet pessimistically delayed; forced into the stillness of death and eternal sleep. He treats morbidity with a sympathetic touch and symbolizes the paradox of the death of the individual by objective personification of death. Baroque, bizarre and astonishing in their detail, Kris Kuksi's intricate models and three-dimensional reliefs envisage a post-apocalyptic world in which "new beginnings, new wars, new philosophies, and new endings" replace our own, jaded civilisations.
Born March 2, 1973, in Springfield Missouri and growing up in neighboring Kansas, Kris spent his youth in rural seclusion and isolation. Reaching adulthood, he soon discovered his distaste for the typical American life and pop culture, feeling that he has always belonged to the ‘Old World’. Kris’ work is about a new wilderness, refined and elevated, visualized as a cultivation emerging from the corrupt and demoralized fall of modern-day society. A place were new beginnings, new wars, new philosophies, and new endings exist. In personal reflection, he feels that in the world today much of mankind is oftentimes frivolous and fragile, being driven primarily by greed and materialism. He hopes that his art exposes the fallacies of Man, unveiling a new level of awareness to the viewer.
Anish Kapoor
Shooting into the Corner, 2008-2009
Mixed Media
Dimensions Variable
Kapoor's pieces are frequently simple, curved forms, usually monochromatic and brightly coloured. Most often, the intention is to engage the viewer, producing awe through their size and simple beauty, evoking mystery through the works' dark cavities.
Weapons come from many different sources and countries: they are sometimes highly sophisticated, while at other times they are hand constructed, crude versions of weaponry. Anish Kapoor's piece, Shooting into the Corner takes this idea and allows the viewer to be maniuplated into a specific relation with both space and time. Specifically with this piece the political notions of weaponry, death, and blood are all evident in the work. The weaponry involved in the arms race damages and destroys all in its way. No one knows exactly how far it will go.
Micropopulation:
Olafur Eliasson
Take Your Time
Circular Mirror
40 feet in diameter
Over the past 15 years, Danish-Iceland Olafur Eliasson has experimented with installations based on mechanisms of motion, projection, shadow, and reflection, creating complex optical phenomena using simple, makeshift technical devices. Take Your Time is a monumental installation, whose large-scale, immersive environments shift the viewer's perception and experience of place and self. A circular mirror, 40 feet in diameter and weighing 1,000 pounds, is mounted to the ceiling at an angle, rotating at one revolution per minute. The installation destabilizes viewer's perception of space as they pass beneath it.
