le samourai
Back when the twentieth century was fresh and movies were a hand cranked, 4 minute reel of celluloid, Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov experimented with putting moving images next to each other and establishing and artificial continuity known as montage. The Kuleshov Effect is that trick the machine plays on our minds to create an illusion of reality that we immerse ourselves in through the day. In my opinion these experiments changed the world as much as any of the great inventions of the twentieth century. Like alternating current, antibiotics or other advances that have changed the lives of millions, montage has grown into a visual language that has shaped the perceptions of a species on a global scale.
Montage is at the heart of my work as a film and video editor and diptychs, the most rudimentary tool of my craft, are a way of exploring both the quantum core and outer limits of the instrument.
The art of the edits is what happens in your head as your brain tries to draw connections between the images. Sometimes the Edits are simple visual puns, or cartoons, others are aesthetic comments or political statements. A lot of them are from a series called Studies For An Untitled Space Opera, which is kind of a science fiction film running in my head. There’s a couple years my sci fi hallucination @ www.ectstaticabyss.tumblr.com
There are issues of appropriation addressed in the work. All of these images come from jpegs dragged from my browser into my miscellaneous jpeg folder. Jpegs are the seashells of the internet, washing up in pretty waves upon the beaches of our device. The intent is not to steal the work of individual artists but to weave a skein of unexpected connections in the head of the viewer.
The fact that this work is found in the bathrooms is nod to working conditions often found in the industry.
There are several large PoP panels displayed exclusively on opening reception and documentary screening nights.