55505 pareidolia : 2011-2013

20.01.2014 - 02.02.2014

LLOYD DUNN : 55505 pareidolia : 2011-2013

Beginning with a selection of found recordings, which include such things as optically-recorded foleyed sounds from narrative films, field recordings of steam locomotives, and radio transmissions from space, the artist assiduously strips away much of their referential surface, and lays bare some aspect of each sound’s inner core, emphasizing subjectivity and the emotional responses implied or elicited by these uncovered forms.

The sequence of images and sounds in 55505 pareidolia suggests, in some abstract way, the evolving states in the life-spans of organisms and machines, through the use of an assembled visual analogue for the sounds, together with and the artist’s reading of the sounds' various effects on the mind’s eye, described using (mostly) found images. The result is an unfolding poetic visual essay or meditation that might best be seen as a puzzle that elicits ideas of moving, changing, becoming, perceiving, and responding, that subjectively touches on cosmological and historical themes along the way.

In terms of filmmaking, the 55505 pareidolia draws inspiration from the notion of a “pure cinema,” disconnected from narrative or documentary concerns. The artist also feels strongly the influence of Eisenstein’s theories of montage, especially as filtered through Pelechian’s theory of distance montage.

By calling the work a “pareidolia,” the artist highlights the way in which all art is understood by the viewer or listener through the more or less subtle coersions of the artist, which are successful (or not) to the extent that the artist understands and can control the perceptual apparatus of the observer, as mediated via pervasive cultural codes. Lloyd Dunn is a multimedia artist working in machine-based media since the 1980s. He holds an MFA from the University of Iowa, USA, where he studied multimedia under Mel Andringa and Hans Breder, and electronic music under Kenneth Gaburo. During the 1980s and 90s he edited and published the graphic arts magazines Photostatic and Retrofuturism, which were circulated worldwide and collected by the Library of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, among other collections. In 1987, Dunn cofounded the Tape-beatles, who were among a few early recording experimenters whose work explicitly challenged intellectual property and copyright. They eventually created a series of ambitious “expanded cinema” performances, and released 5 CDs on the Staalplaat label (Amsterdam, Berlin), as well as smaller projects on other labels. Since 2009, Dunn's main project has been the project nula.cc, the online presence for a series of filecasts initiated to further explore his long-standing interest in machine-based art forms, appropriation and collage, time-based media and design. The website http://nula.cc itself is a custom platform created by Dunn to explore the artistic and expressive potential of the worldwide web.

 
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