In subterranean departments of Amazon, imagineers are working feverishly on the next stage of the corporation’s drone technology. As much as instincts to unionise can be suppressed, the human flesh is expected to resist, on the other hand, mechanical appendages are limited in their dexterity. One machine for one function is a non-responsive solution to a complex problem. But what if flesh could be trained?
Affixed to the exteriors of Amazon parcels, Ian Bruner’s WiFibody sic temple (low grade burn out, walled-in forever) (2021) prototypes a future in which whole categories of labour are not being replaced by machine intelligence, instead the disruption looks a lot like a blobfish. Assembling formations of muscular cells and imbuing them with the basic pathfinding intelligence of a slime mold, the tech giants carve off overheads. With training the blobs will learn basic tasks, they will become efficient at collecting items from shelves and packing them within the correct box. As familiarity with their aesthetic quirks grows, public tests will be carried out, small cities selected to see how well the blobs can navigate whilst carrying a parcel.
Overtime flesh and cardboard will be fused. The knock at your door is replaced with a wet slap. And if your dog attacks this new post-blob, don’t worry, it cannot feel pain.
Accompanying his dystopian delivery sculptures, Bruner is showing with anonymous gallery four digital pieces, available as aluminum dibond prints, that capture a glimpse of the material decay of a world consumed with instant gratification. In a lazarus taxa (I saw you in another body three feet from me) hermetically sealed, it will seem like a lot but it won’t be anything at all (2019) and good bye (🕳️🕳️🕳️🕳️🕳️) (2019), Bruner casts his attention downwards to the gutter, collaging together waste wrappers, machine parts and animal inhabitants into a new back alley ecosystem. Whereas, cursed but placid (2020) returns this excess to the domestic, envisioning a bathroom reclaimed by rabbits.
The source of this excess is encapsulated in snack quest (at the end) (2020). Recalling Edward Hopper’s House by the Railroad (1925) and Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World (1948), the insatiable search for junk food is ennobled, munchies made equitable to a turn of the century model of fortitude. By making this pictorial comparison, Bruner draws our attention to the social decline engendered by a lack of resilience and desires fed by logistical immediacy.
Ian Bruner (b. 1987) is an artist and curator living and working in Colorado. He is the co-founder of Rhizome Parking Garage, an online network of artistic interventions, and Solo Show, a platform of off site exhibitions organised in conjunction with Underground Flower and Harlesden High Street Gallery. Through digital image manipulation and sculptures created from mass produced materials and Amazon parcels, he addresses the gamification of labour, leisure and consumerism. Group exhibitions include: Going Away TV, arebyte Gallery, London (2019); Omni Orchid, Pyeongchon Architectural park, Anyang; The Value of What?, BSMNT, Leipzig; Omni Salvation, Centre Red, Moscow; and Straight Line Labyrinth, Final Hot Desert, Utah (2018). To date, Rhizome Parking Garage has released ten volumes on Soundcloud as part of their Music For Parking Garages programme.
The Terminal: Human Shaped Whole
directed by: Jason Isolini
featuring: Bob Bicknell-Knight, Ian Bruner, Joshua Citarella, Jessica Evans, James Irwin, Claire Jervert, Kakia Konstantinaki, Angeline Meitzler, Erin Mitchell and Neale Willis
curated by: Off Site Project
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:
Ian Bruner .