officially sick of media art. it’s a medium of contemporary, but it is overtly technical; seriously difficult to deconstruct and too often it demands a high level of spectatorship. (esp when it involves sound, 360 degrees consideration plus invisible sound to care about)
2d work is simpler.
“Between mid-July and mid-October, four waterfalls will be erected in the East River in a public art project by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson that will reportedly create $55 million in extra tourism revenue for the city. One of the waterfalls will be under the Brooklyn Bridge. We should have a good view from the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park and Brooklyn Bridge Park from Dumbo.”
last mnt artist statement
my work is about the displacement of human condition.
my work highlights my experience as a constant traveler. crossing borders and experiencing geographies
- i haven’t portray much of city life due its redundancy
so weather and vegetations becomes my primary way to distinct places, i can tell where i am according to types of vegetation, the colour of the leaf and its humidity lalala
so here i’m using perth’s suburban parks as a way to map my existence of being in this place,
so i went to parks around perth, doing some observations and dancing in the wood with my red flash but anyways like other parks from other countries this preserved land used to be part of a bigger forrest. so we’ve transformed this space into series of habitable place, and it is now a suburban cultural iconography that have become quite boring and cliche. in a sense these suburban parks is like a pot plant, it is controlled and the suburban area limits the growth of this series of communal landscape.
there are also a relation and hierarchy of the possession of this “pot plant” the greener your garden is the better is your living condition.
so red flash is used as a way to visualise and to suggest this idea of artificial landscape and i’m also using it as a subtle mockery on romanticised view on suburban culture.
the movement, the infinite loop suggests the instability, the rejection of control, lack of objectuality, and this endless desires and uncertainty.
so in a sense my work questions the credibility of the perfect human condition.
my work is mainly about questions on relational aesthetics/alter-modernism/precariousness. this work specifically talk about the realty of art and life, credibility of unity and as nicolas bourriaud mentioned: aspects of this new emerging modernity.
ok. i feel like this is my favourite set out of all my work. i suggested ‘feel’ due to the comprehensive attachment that i am having with this pair (this is probably the most expressive i can get with photography). what i like about the pair is how unstable the relationship between the two, while at the same time maintains this material and aesthetic compatibility even thought it has been dematerialized.
the picture on the right: is a photograph of a good friend of mine. what i like about this photograph is the blurred distinction between art and life. ok it is difficult to see but if you look closer on the high resolution version, you’ll see this subtle face expression suggesting that she is in a state of laughter (and so was i at the time) and the greatest part of it is that we didn’t even know what we were laughing about, stomach and jaw ache from laughing and even screeching were involved; it was a moment of intimacy (but not in a romantic way but more so.. like a pure mutual expression or a clash of coincidence). so i spontaneously took a photo of what i saw but my subconscious was probably the one who took the photograph; that is what i like about photography, the instant aspect of the process; the unpretentious method of expression and arguably it is as ‘real’ as you can get with art.
the left photograph rejects the idea of intimacy, it mock the relation and connection through the use of this notion of artifice and the nature of this instability of the material. the image on the left is a photograph of water strobed with a flash and red gel. water as a material often used as a metaphor of instability, the opposite of solidity (liquidity? lel) and a rejection of objectuality. so the water is photographed with a flash, freezing this moment that is staged; and the red serves as a connection and paradox within paradox of the two photographs (mainly to question ‘realty’ not reality but ‘realty’).
so in a simplified manner left photograph is a staged moment of fake intimacy while the right photograph embrace the intimate moment between the artist and the subject, the artist and his life and art with life.
p.s that is why the water photo is bigger then the one of justine.
and this is just quick view on this set, it gets uber complicated when you see my work as a whole. anyways my work is more about a question rather than a statement, i’m hoping for an open discussion and just to make people think really.
such a fluid artist statement
Subhankar Banerjee
“My work addresses two simple things: home and food. Land provides these to humans and to all other species with whom we share this earth. I call it land-as-home. I take photos, write words and give talks. My photos are usually quiet, and the words – written and spoken – are usually loud. With all that in a loose bundle, I attempt to resist the industrial destruction of our planet’s ecocultural fabric. So far, I’ve worked only in two regions. In the Arctic on an ongoing series of 11 years, and in the New Mexico desert that began in 2006 and ended in 2010, that was titled ‘Where I Live I Hope To Know’. Someday I hope to begin work in the forests of the global south – India and the Amazon are calling. The Arctic, deserts and forests are all interconnected through relations among species, spaces and people – this is what I explore in my work.”
