PERFECTION | SPECULATION - 2021
Materials: Mixed Digital Media, presented at the Vigeland Museum, Oslo.
Perfection / Speculation, led by artist Adam Peacock and Praksis, Oslo connects with body cultures of the past, present and future. This residency took place over 2021 and was supported by a dynamic relationship between its two residency partners: the Vigeland Museum and queer live events co-ordinators Karmaklubb*. The project revisits the work of Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland (1869-1943) to investigate past and future constructions of gender, race, sexuality, age, body politics, and the notion of the ideal human. The residency and culminating work was led by Adam Peacock and included the artists Marte Aas, Jonathan Armour, Louis Alderson-Bythell, Trinley Dorje, Erika Stöckel, and Bobby Yu Shuk Pu. To find out more about the project follow this link:
A GIF taken from the CLASH project artwork called ' I Live Longer so you can Grow Stronger'
Over the course of this residency, we engaged as a collective around many themes including human body augmentation, biotechnology, genetics, body image and also notions of beauty and class. I took an approach that made parallels with ecology and biology. The work ' I live longer so you grow stronger' made links with Suzanne Simard's notion of 'Mother Trees', the theory that mature trees support their younglings by 'stressing' their growth to make them more resilient. The weakest saplings fail and the nutrients are reverted to the mother tree. This had links with conversations with Marte Aas during the residency around the use of young blood to regenerate the tissues of aging people.
'CLASH' project, screened at the Vigeland Museum during the 'Queering the Museum Event.
Video developed using a General Adversarial Network, using using imagery from the Australian Museum of Natural History.
Untitled work, produced for the Perfection | Speculation 'CLASH' Project.
Video of the artwork called ' I Live Longer so you can Grow Stronger'
As part of my research over this residency, I explored collections of 'Protofigurines'. These are often rocks or other natural objects that are not made by humans but are collected for their resemblance to the human form. A notable protofigurine 'La Masque Roche-Cotard', Using 3D sculpting tools, I recreated this and other protofigurines and merged them with the sculptures of Gustav Vigeland, his was an idealised, social character of the human body. The protofigurines however are coveted for their precious irregularity, a mere human resemblance. It was important to draw these two things through time, especially given the body-discourse pertinent at the time of Vigeland, which was when much theory around Eugenics was developing.
'Five Girls' - A digital work combining protofigurines and a sculpture by Gustav Vigeland.