DO YOU LIVE IN TERMINAL JEST?
Using appropriated materials and digital proccesses to create absurd film and digital forms; Utilising the material world's preexisiting matter is essential in our "post-truth" colloquial era. The oral tradition of myth is reemerging, in the dank layers of lewd internet discourse. But what does lurk in the electric confines of our collective unconscious?
In a utopia, technology serves us and life pushes us into creative free labour... But, if we don't live in a utopia, would our technology take a more ambivalent position within our post-modern lives? Would we experience what Wallace's book called INFINITE JEST? Or more aptly, which I have called myself, Terminal Jest.
The world is truly beautiful; we have complete and utter world peace- do we not? Ironies: like how a child loves their parent despite their abuse, fascinate my practice. Our civilisation is sick from capitalism, or at least that is how psychoanalyst Fromm wrote in his many books (I.e. The fear of Freedom, The Sane Society, The Crisis of Psychoanalysis). Drawing from these theories, and other concepts such as Camus’ Absurdist (I.e The Myth of Sisyphus, The Plague) obsession with cycles, paradoxes and unwavering beliefs, I’ve consolidated practical and philosophical challenges through the idea of commodification, authorship and alienation into Lo-fi video and sound processes. These digital augmentations allow for a sublime of the mundane, of a heralding of minimalistic sublimations of transport, internet commentary and retro adverts. The death of the original, and the rejuvenation felt within appropriated media allow for abstract investigations of alienation, obedience and autonomy. Disorientation and sensory overload are mediums of my personal experience, and amongst the totalising delusions that capitalism bathes us in (like belief of infinite consumption), concepts of confusion, of skepticism and of ambiguity are perhaps the most divisive and crucial within my work. Unable to find the start, and unaware of a true ending, the deluge of colour, form and sound overwhelm the viewer, ultimately reaching for a maximal interpretation of our contemporary civilisation that is without an active resolution but in a certain sense is also confined electronically.
Work
Graphic Artist and Designer
2018-
D.I.Y Music label, showcasing underground artists from in and around the Midlands.
Education
2017 -
Fine Art, Birmingham City University
3 years Video Editing experience,
2 years Sound design using professional DAWs.
2014 – 2015
Level 4 Foundation Art and Design,
Colchester Institute
1 Year Plaster and Casting
CV
Exhibition
2020 Upcoming Group Show, School of Art, Birmingham
Technological investigation of online networks and culture.
Speaker
2016 SWP Birmingham Branch -
On Human Nature
Commissioned Art
2016 SWP Birmingham Branch -
Paper, acrylics, poly-pockets and leaflets.
Exhibiting Artist, gallery assistant
2015 Group Show, Colchester Institute -
Plaster, Aluminum cans, Step Ladder, Mirror Glass.
An assemblage purposing both the ready-made and sculptural objects.
Contact