andihalfpapp

[andihalfpapp]

Put your best foot forward… wait, which foot is that?

When I first moved to Victoria only a little while ago I did it because I felt like I needed to (ever since I was 12 and visited for the first time if I am honest). I felt that it was the only shot I had at getting work somewhat related to my industry, the competition for work here is just as tough as Queensland, but there is a completely different cultural atmosphere surrounding the creative industries here, and most importantly, a proverbial shit tonne more work to at least apply for. Of course not all in the creative industries, some I just feel I could do well or am vaguely interested in.

I have applied for 109 jobs in 6 months. That is 109 cover letters, countless edits to CVs and selection criteria responses. If I put this into a percentage of positive response to applied rate it comes out around 4.5%. As far I as I can tell that is at least 50 obsessive hours sitting in front of the glaring computer screen in what seems on some days as an exercise futility.

Everyone I talk to (obsessively panic to, sorry guys) has a different solution to offer. Be personal in your cover letter, your cover letter should be only about your experience, you should not have gaps in your resume, you should have strategic gaps, you should be confident, you should be humble, apply for everything, apply for less and tailor it more….

I have tried them all and none seem to have any significant advantage. The most recent to resurface is the idea of essentially removing one or all of my qualifications. This arose again sitting at the recruitment agency. As she is scrolling through vacancies, she comes across a casual position for meat packers 30 mins drive away, 12 hour shifts, and with a particular multi-national that I spent 11 years working for.  She says that she would like to submit my CV for their next intake round but first she would need to “edit it” by removing those ridiculous pieces of paper that I worked very long and hard for. The stress of this seems to be mainly focussed on the prospective employer assuming that I am not really interested in the position, that I will get bored, leave, and not be a worthwhile investment for them. I find myself constantly asking why the sheer act of applying does not give an indicative sign of my interest in the position.

Don’t get me wrong here, I get the concept, particularly when applying for an entry level/unskilled position as they call it. I am just frustrated. Even when I can move past the stubborn clinging to the proof of my labors I still get stuck. Aside from the blatantly obvious meat packing positions, which applications do I remove these qualifications for? Which ones do I remove? Will this be short changing my efforts and skills? I cannot possibly account for all the biases that will come in to the viewing of my meticulously curated application so should I even attempt it? Most of the time I panic and leave it all on there because at least that is honest, and hope that someone will read it the way I do; this is someone who is has a lot of experience in different areas that likes to learn, is flexible, and reliable no matter what position or industry she applies herself to.

I wish all of you identifying with this predicament luck, and an empathetic shoulder to stand or cry on.

X

[andihalfpapp]

I had a plan…

I had a plan. I was going to go to university, finish a degree that had decent job prospects in an industry that was booming. I was going to go straight in to full time work, earn enough for a deposit on a house (at the time around $30,000), live in it for a year, and then perhaps rent it out as an investment property. In the four years it took to complete my first two degrees for the job I had planned there had been many changes. The job prospects were much less, the industry had been defunded, and thus no full time work to fund that house deposit.

An opportunity presented itself so I went back to university thinking that things might change in that time and that at the very least I would surely have more job prospects. The industry lost more money, the jobs got fewer, the people applying for them tripled in to the hundreds, and because the industry tightened at the top, despite having a wealth of experience, I was competing against people who had been in the industry pre-dating my birth for entry level positions.

During this time I have held up to five positions in different areas at once. I have been working since the age of 13. I have felt powerless rage against the system in which I have to participate to pay my bills. I have compromised myself and my wellbeing to pay rent. I have been employed fairly consistently for the past ten years, I am one of the lucky ones.

This is not a story of woe. This is an illustration of two things. The times have changed. Unlike our parents’ generation a Degree or certification does not guarantee you a job, much less one with a decent pay check. They can no longer laugh derisively at the 30 something year old working at the checkout; chances are they have three degrees and a lifetimes more experience. Secondly, you can do all of the right things to set yourself up for societies view of success, and still fall short.

To add insult to injury our current government expects our parents to foot the bill. When I heard this I started yelling at my car radio in a rage. My single parent only owns our family home through inheritance, and is on a low income. I’m sorry, where will he get this cool $60,000 and why should he give it to me? The issue is not getting hand outs but the socio-economic divide that is being perpetuated by the government and their vast misunderstanding of the predicament facing the majority of Australia.

This is our current reality and our forbearers must face it as well as ourselves. We can fight, we can raise awareness, but at the end of the day we can’t beat our heads against the wall of corrupt capitalist ideology. Our idea of success must change, or we will run ourselves in to a permanent cycle of disappointment. Be strong, be prepared, be willing.

 X The Resilient Generation

[andihalfpapp]

Something SMALL for Something BIG

A few things about Australia, in particular our governments ethos for making money.

1.       We are Capitalist

2.       We export our best

3.       We import everything

Our government is run like a business rather than a not for profit organisation. Our best beef and steel is sent to other countries. We import products we can make here. This means, while we do get amazing products from other countries and they get some of ours, pushed to this extent our wine for example is cheaper to import from the UK than to buy here, is that not crazy?!  Obviously not what most of us feel Australia should solely represent but a very simplified platform to explain how, within these confines, we can make a difference.

Capitalism= Money Talks.

Whilst this statement seems quite marginalising it also means that you, the consumer, have all the power. With every purchase, every dollar, you can vote for the kind of Australia you want. If you want a business to support Australian small business, then buy Australian made and owned. This is the only way big business (our government) will listen. No to socialist pressure but to what makes them the most money. Ie. If you want the big supermarkets to stop exploiting Aussie dairy farmers, don’t buy their brand of milk, better yet, buy something locally made and owned.

Now I know they make this harder with price, it’s hard to go past the $1 option especially for those of us from low socio-economic backgrounds, students, single parents etc. This is NOT a guilt trip, this is about strategies for making your vote count. It’s about when you have the choice, make it, make your vote count.

To make your vote count all you have to do is be a discerning consumer that follows the money. Know where your dollar is really going. This also goes for shopping ethically. For example, The Body Shop. On the surface, no animal testing and responsibly sourced ingredients, but guess who owns The Body Shop now…. That’s right one of the worst offenders. L’Oreal. To add insult to injury, L’Oreal is partly owned by Nestle who have been criticised for Human Rights Violations and slave labour in Brazil.

Enough of the bad news, now for some value for money, amazing, ethical, and Australian products!

Devondale Dairy Products- http://www.devondale.com.au/ Competitively priced and if like me you don’t drink a lot of milk, go for their UHT milk/cream for just over $1/Litre.

Natures Organics- https://www.naturesorganics.com.au Owns a few subsidiaries you would know but my favourites are “Earth Choice” for cleaning products and “Australian Pure” for skin care. Very cheap and some of the best I have ever used.

Natio- https://www.natio.com.au/ Great foundations and easy to get at priceline etc. for around $20.

Napoleon Perdis- http://napoleonperdis.com/ A little pricier but for quality and fun you can’t go past them.

And my final tip that will make this all easy to see in one place! (they also have an app with barcode scanner!)

http://www.ethical.org.au/

[andihalfpapp]

Getta ZePickle Burger

Ahhhh the foodie culture. While it has led to some amazing inventions and opened avenues for niche vendors, it has also spawned a litany of overpriced sub-par “hipster” restaurants. I however am not here to bring any of them down, merely draw out some places that are worth your time and money. This month is BURGERS!

The American style burger fad is sweeping our nation, marked by ridiculously large portions and all things fried. When embarking on an American inspired food journey I tend to bring my partner. Not necessarily so I don’t eat too much but so we can try all the things; ie. Order two different things and split them. This was most important when going for the Getta Burger experience. Most of their stores are reasonably small, hole in the wall style, takeaway joints. The two Queenslanders that own this sinful place do everything meaty from scratch; from smoking and grinding, to their saucy concoctions. This is what makes Getta Burger special (not just the mammoth oily servings).

ZePickle, while also sticking to the small menu done well formula, has a very different vibe. Their flavours are a little more refined, prices a little more expensive, but they do deliver or everything they promise. From the best Buffalo wings I’ve had since being in America (with ranch sauce of course), to, the only desert on the menu, a deep fried Oreo you will never forget. I know I said I would be talking about burgers but this oreo… crispy batter on the outside and warm, soft, but still with that biscuit crunch on the inside, drizzled with nuttella and served with ice cream. Cooking wise, something that is very difficult to achieve but the only way it should be done. Their burgers maintain this level of perfection with those slightly odd combinations that just work, topped with Ze Pickle.

The best thing about both of these burger joints, locally owned and operated! Check them out!

http://www.gettaburger.com.au/

http://zepickle.com/

[andihalfpapp]

pars pro toto

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pars pro toto

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pars pro toto

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pars pro toto

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pars pro toto

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pars pro toto closing night

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pars pro toto install

[andihalfpapp]

Responding to pars pro toto

  Grace Winzar

  The title of Andi Halfpapp’s 2014 exhibition Pars Pro Toto refers to the Latin meaning-‘A part or aspect of something taken as representative of the whole’[1]. More specifically: a part that represents or connects to a greater universal idea. Each of the six artists in this exhibition (Genine Larin, Jake Sun, Rebecca Daynes, Sean Phillips, Erin Coates and Stuart James) provided artworks with individual concepts and differing subject matter, but within the context of this exhibition they spoke to each other. This is largely the result of Halfpapp’s discursive curation.

  The dominant curatorial mode tends to present artworks in a linear fashion inside a white cube[2]. This kind of curation is modernist, in which collections are presented in a minimalist fashion with white walls and bright lights, usually accompanied by didactics. This has been established as safe and effective in terms of generating focus upon each particular artwork and it’s concept. At the risk of being cut by Occam’s Razor, Halfpapp opted for a postmodern approach, presenting works through a non-linear gaze, bordering on chaotic. The unique positioning of all works entwined the concepts and brought the similarities between them into plain sight, without the need for wall didactics or even a catalogue essay. Pars Pro Toto was self-reflexive; it was an exhibition about curatorial practice just as much as it was about the art itself.

  The exhibition was held in QUT’s Creative Industries Precinct, a lengthy rectangular space with high ceilings and an industrial feel.  The space was dimly lit, with the use of light boxes and spot lighting to highlight individual artworks, so that rather than systematically viewing object to object, the audience could freely wander through the darkness, discovering and exploring the unusually and sometimes awkwardly placed artworks.

  While the artworks were quite different in terms of style and media, they connected elusively in concept; a connection that was enhanced by the way in which they were presented. The artworks explored subjects as varied as empathy, sociality, linguistics and sexuality; the common factor being that they each had fundamentally human qualities or characteristics. The presentation, including placement of the artworks and the presence of sounds reverberating throughout the gallery space, caused the works to physically overlap, which created an interconnectedness that appeared organic, as though the gallery space itself had become a sentient, breathing thing.

  Despite the fairly large space, the artworks were placed in close proximity and positioned both in the center of the space as well as bordering the edges, forcing the audience to weave between them. Rebecca Daynes’ Prayer For A Third Arm was displayed not on a wall but in a freestanding light box, angled away from the entrance. Genine Larin’s Organs Without Bodies were hung and displayed at different heights, and the positioning was curved organically rather than in a straight line.

  Sean Phillips’ Untitled (Electric Typewriter on Paper) were displayed laying flat sitting in their frames on the ground, rather than being hung on a wall. This was an uncomfortable display; positioning viewers to either kneel down to study the works or choose to walk around them. This worked well within the context of the exhibition, because the awkward positioning made them a focus point (they were not lost on the wall and they were made highly visible) and yet it made the writing on the artworks themselves more difficult to read. In a way, this display may have emphasised the artist’s point, as these works are about language, referring perhaps to the loss or lack of power of words.

  Erin Coates’ collaboration with Stuart James, Merge was displayed near Larin’s sculptures. The film is a car that has human-like qualities; blood-red airbags take over the entire car’s interior; they fill with air like lungs and move and flail about until finally breaking through the windscreen and windows. It was probably not a coincidence that this work was positioned near Larin’s sculptures. A ‘breathing’ car and organs ‘without bodies’, in the context of this exhibition these otherwise unrelated concepts now complement each other; as though the organs were surgically removed from the car and carefully laid out on the operating table.

  Finally, the exhibition was tied together by Jake Sun’s No Destination, Home. This work was displayed on two large screens, the same work repeated but one in a blue tone and one in red. The video was an abstract blend of colours that appeared to be sucked through a vortex; the film was looped, positioning the viewer to follow a never-ending drive into a black hole. This was accompanied by an abstract sound, which echoed throughout the gallery space. The effect of displaying this work on two screens gave it the appearance of a pair of large irises, as though the work itself was alive and watching the audience right back.

    [1] Pars pro toto definition, Oxford Dictionary, 2014, <www.oxforddictionaries.com>

[2] White Cube definition, Curatorial Dictionary, 2014 <http://tranzit.org/curatorialdictionary/index.php/dictionary/white-cube/>

[andihalfpapp]

Simon Starling In Speculum

http://bneart.com/simon-starling-in-speculum-2/

The Simon Starling exhibition showing at the Institute of Modern Art from October 5th to November 30th 2013 presents a series of visual puzzles using an extensive array of materials. From sculpture and installation to photography and film, all the works within the exhibition are a result of extensive research, fine-tuning, and editing. Whilst in some works this has the potential to inhibit the audience’s ability to immediately connect, Starling leaves tantalising strands of visual information for them to grab hold of. If the audience is diligent and investigates a little further, they are rewarded with a rich and historical denouement.

Starling’s re-contextualisation of seemingly ordinary objects allows them to speak of new ideas in which their history is intersected with a broader cultural construct (Birnbaum 2008). These simple objects often become unexpectedly complex, asking the viewers to commit themselves to unravelling their mystery. Venus Mirrors (05.06.12, Hawaii and Tahiti (Inverted)) 2012 situates two opposing concave mirrors in a passage way between two other works. Together they create a tension as the viewer searches for some sort of perspective or illusion, negotiating the expectation of their own reflection. As they move around, the mirrors reveal a shifting black disk representing Venus’ transit in 2012, which was the basis for advancements in the understanding of solar system dimensions.

Many of Simon Starling’s works are unique, handcrafted, purpose built objects. Wilhelm Noacko.H.G(2006) appears like a bespoke spiral staircase in the middle of a room, projecting a black and white film on the far wall. The object itself, towering almost to the ceiling, supports a 35mm film projector. The frame of the metal helical structure casts shadows across the floor and walls, and the grinding hammering metal sounds from the projection emanate through the room. On closer inspection the work reveals itself to be an intricate system of pullies feeding the film through the projector. The film itself is a series of realistic and abstract shots, moving through a metal fabrication factory. When the viewer reads further in to the work they discover that the film is documenting the making of the projection support structure, whilst also paralleling a historical recording of the factory. The film machine resonates with Starlings research practice; they appear to create a hermetic loop of information and processes. It also becomes evident that the particular factory used for the work is important as Wilhelm Noak, the works namesake, had close ties with the Bauhaus and Modernist structure fabrication (Bonaspetti 2011). These kind of intricate details characterize Starling’s work throughout the exhibition. From a stripped piece of a tree sitting in front of a photograph of itself standing tall in a forest, to the series of sculptures constructed from images of Francis Bacons’ desk and the subsequent imitations, all his works offer a conceptual journey beyond themselves.

Written by Andi Halfpapp

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Exhibition Essay for Pirrin Francis' Nightfall Recollections with Inhouse ARI

OUR MEMORIES ARE NOT OUR OWN

By Andi Halfpapp

“He liked the fragility of those moments suspended in time. Those memories whose only function had been to leave behind nothing but memories. He wrote: I’ve been round the world several times and now only banality still interests me. On this trip I’ve tracked it with the relentlessness of a bounty hunter. At dawn we’ll be in Tokyo.” 1

In Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil (2003) he recorded moments of ubiquity as he traveled around the world, filming extreme poles of survival across three vastly different cultures during the Cold War: Japanese, African, and European. The video imagery is overlaid with the voice of a female reading letters written to her detailing his physical and emotional experiences of the places he found himself. Despite the absence of key facts and figures relating to the positioning of these cultures at the time, Marker’s close up and inquisitive look manages to transcend the need for themi. Through a combination of visual, audible and temporal elements, Marker is able to communicate a historical and nostalgic depiction that subsequently creates a liminal relationship between past, present, personal, and cultural historiesii.

Similarly to Marker, Pirrin Francis’ exhibition Nightfall Recollections relies on the recording of disparate moments in time and their transcendent temporal nature. Francis’ work often employs large installation environments. In these installations there are multitudes of merzbau like cardboard constructions that resemble cities or castles. The viewer is compelled to kneel down to put the structures in to a more familiar perspective, like she is begging them to act on their inner child. Adults though are tentative and remain in a stubborn standing position, observing from atop. While most installations tend to stay within the conventional parameters of the institution, video installations like Francis’ embrace these complex, layered scenarios that transform and dissolve components of physical spaceiii. For Nightfall Recollections, the perceptual understanding of the house (or home in this instance) becomes a new conceptual frame for Francis’ work; no longer a cardboard fort of memories, but an all encompassing encounter that the viewer is welcomed inside.

Pirrin’s work often uses found imagery and video; in this case it has been found in her own history. These recorded moments of her and her family are abstracted from her timeline, and with no precise contextualization it is not immediately apparent that you are being given this personal insight into the artist, making her work deeply subjective, yet universal and democratic. The sound that emanates from her work is like an ambient wilderness, but there is some interference reminiscent of on an old film projector that makes the environment seem familiarly distant as they anticipate the appearance of corporal images. Her work represents a unique view of time, while the digital age brings a camera to every warm body, most of the population up until now did not have their childhood recorded so adamantly, and certainly not in the hyper-realistic definition that it is now. These faded images from decaying technologies have captured something so precious: someone who has now grown in a point in their history, which can only be revisited through these afterthoughts. While at first these audible and visual accounts of moments seem disjointed, there is a phenomenological connection that binds them, a sort of tacit understanding embedded in the idea of memory.

“So they had to come there, both of them, under the rain, to perform the rite that would repair the web of time where it had been broken”.1

There is an intersection of reality and fictive mythology that flows through Pirrin Francis’ works. Within them there is a deliberate framing of the textural gestures of the mouth, hands, and eyes. Certain areas are masked and others put in to sharp focus. The plinths in Nightfall Recollections stand holding these images like totems, or spiritual iconoclasts of an idea, or a memory; these once simple family excerpts are raised to the position of the ‘object’ and the sacred. The hand drawn animations bring this spiritual connection to the forefront, as the duplicit nature of history playfully undulates like that of Hayao Miyazaki’s films. Like the disparate forest spirits in Princess Mononoke (1997), her work speaks of a metaphysical longing for a perceived unity of existence, and offers the possibility of a transitory reconciliation.

“He wrote me: I will have spent my life trying to understand the function of remembering, which is not the opposite of forgetting, but rather its lining. We do not remember, we rewrite memory much as history is rewritten. How can one remember thirst?”.1

Francis’ work usually focuses on found material, much of it with somewhat recognisable historical or cultural content. In her 2011 work at The Block, Are They Biological, these images were projected within and out of a cardboard city of sorts. These socio-historical clips from the Lumiere Brothers and Thomas Edison were interlaced with her own content, creating a parallel narrative. This is where Nightfall Recollections draws a new tangent, working almost purely from an autobiographical stand point, drawing together her own narratives and found imagery, and overlaying them with semiotic symbols of diamonds, totems, and masks. Marker argues that the temporal, audible, and visual elements of the filmic apparatus mimic the image process of memory, and being that traditional history is no more than a memory written down, then documentary-like practices provide a more comprehensive account, allowing for an easier platform from which to articulate historiesiv. Almost like a physical embodiment of Marker’s ideas, the elements of sound and time displacement that underpin Francis’ representation serve to enunciate the feelings and emotions associated with the manipulated visuals.

These found, personal, and semiotic elements are laced together; pulled in to a singular environment in which they merge, creating an alternative narrative. These tangential narratives are like surrogate memories in which the viewer is offered a meditation, enabling them to amalgamate themselves with the beings before them. This experiential encounter of time and image acts on Lacanian mirror identity formation, offering an intuitive experience with an open-ended resolution. This notion is something unique to the screen, as the viewer both sees themselves as themselves, and as another, in and as the imagev. As children get older, parents begin to tell them of things they did, creating their history and implanting memories of these forgotten moments. As memory is a malleable and susceptive thing, these moments need not have ever happened in order for them to be rememberedvi, thus, through her use of the screen and universal imagery Pirrin Francis’ work becomes a part of the viewer’s augmented memory.

1  Chris Marker, Sans Soleil (DVD 2003).

i   Ákos Östör, “Sans Soleil by Chris Marker,” in American Anthropologist, vol. 89 (Wiley, n.d.), 1022–1023.

ii   Jeremy Barr, “ProQuest Document View – ‘How Does One Remember Thirst?’: Phallic and Matrixial Memory in Chris Marker’s La Jetee and Sans Soleil” (FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY, 2011), http://gradworks.umi.com/14/96/1496233.html.

iii   Hugh Marlais Davies, Ronald J. Onorato, and Museum of Contemporary Art Diego San, Blurring the Boundaries: Installation Art, 1969-1996 (Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, 1997).

iv   “Immemory by Chris Marker — Notes from the Era of Imperfect Memory,” accessed May 28, 2013, http://www.chrismarker.org/immemory-bychris-marker/.

v   Amelia Jones, Andrew Stephenson Nfa, and Andrew Stephenson, eds., Performing the Body/Performing the Text (Routledge, 1999).

vi   Elizabeth F Loftus, “Make-believe Memories,” The American Psychologist 58, no. 11 (November 2003): 867–873, doi:10.1037/0003-066X.58.11.867.

  http://www.inhouseari.com.au/andi-halfpapp/

http://www.inhouseari.com.au/nightfall-recollections-sat-8th-june/

[andihalfpapp]

‘One & Other’ Inhouse with Jake Sun

You walk in through the front door and are confronted with the back of a man who is playing piano, to his left, a white platform with rhythmic light movement; you assume covering stairs. The piano is not always the same. It feels as if it reacts to mood or movement in the space, the same way the images around the space move with deeper notes of ambient sound. You turn to your left to follow the next stream of light. On the wall is a large projection, pulsating and reflective of flesh. Across from you, a couple of meters apart are two doorways blocked with black fabric, obscured light trying to escape through the fold. You then have no choice but to turn to your right, where a softer mirrored image of the first wall projection floats on white fabric, blocking another point of entry. In front of you now though, two blue abstract projections. While distant, they make you hesitant to move forward and around them, in trepidation of the exit.

  If one were to contextualise Jake Sun’s One & Other it would be somewhere in Luigi Russolo’s Manifesto L'arte dei rumori (The Art of Noises), his futurist paintings of saturated colour, and contemporary video-art’s phenomenological explorations of installation. Video-installation is unique in the way it is informed retrospectively by precepts of the past, yet it does not let its meaning be constructed by them [1]. For Sun, these retrospective influences can be seen in his use of a house as a found object in which to respond with an installation of abstractly foreign, yet familiar, combination of sound and vision. The medium then becomes simultaneously complicit with, and autonomous from consumerist and artistic discourse. Thus, Sun allows for a truly democratic viewership in an immersive environment that is capable of transcending both institutional and personal barriers.

  It is clear that the projections are more than just effects, which evokes a desire to uncover what they may have been previous to their abstraction. This desire is further extended by the blockade of various entries and exits within the house, as they conceal and direct the experience within the space. As sound in itself is universal and omnipresent, in combination with such abstract visualisations it creates a textural physicality that embraces the viewer; activating the space with a strange expansive consciousness. The deeper ambient notes seem to tap in to alpha- waves, permeated only by the piano’s presence allowing gamma-waves to filter through the subconscious.  This contradictory combination of the meditative and over-active brain waves affords the viewer the opportunity to adopt an enhanced phenomenological consciousness of themselves and the space in which they are situated [2].

  While most installations tend to stay within the conventional parameters of the institution [3]; Sun’s video-installations create complex, layered scenarios that transform and dissolve components of physical space. The actuality of the space is routed in the audience’s perceptual understanding of it as a ‘home’, giving a perceptual awareness and direction as to what constitutes an entry, or exit. However, the realist and idealist expectation of a ‘home’ (which is informed by pre-existing social, historical, scientific, and aesthetic conceptions [4]), does not match the encounter, creating a paradoxical link between the objective known experience and the subjective felt experience. In their corporeal nature, the videos and the space that contains them exploit the viewer’s anxieties of perception with tentativeness for entry and exit. The screened doorways obstruct the viewer’s path; they are required to circumnavigate the space, feeling the way as they become aware of their attempt to find the ‘correct’ place from which to view the work. These forms liberate the passive viewer from their singular-axis gaze, forcing them to orientate space, image, and object, thus initiating a phenomenological experience and awareness of themselves and the work.

  Whilst some of Sun’s works draw on the ever-present anxieties of human existence, One & Other seems to use this terrain for something more intimate and spiritually elevated. Sun’s work engages the viewer in a metaphysical sense, affecting them on a physical and emotional level. The reflections of the installation bathe the viewer in light while the sound encapsulates their mind, enveloping them in this physical and virtual space; allowing for a fictive discourse with the work and the artist.The spatial, audible, and visual elements of Jake Sun’s work combine to expand and affect the consciousness of the viewer through an alteration of their experiential ‘self’, changing them from passive spectators to embodied perceivers of the one, and the other.

  1 Scherwefel, Heinz. 1997. Bruce Nauman: Make Me Think. Artcore Productions. DVD.

2 Parry, Joseph D. 2010, Art and Phenomenology, 103.

3 Onorato, Ronald. 1997. Blurring The Boundaries: Installation Art 1969-1996. 13-29. San Diego: Museum of Contemporary Art.

4 Toadvine, Ted, “Phenomenology and ‘Hyper-reflection’.”

[andihalfpapp]

Andi Halfpapp- Untitled (Ethereal Affinity) New video work September 2012.