I barely squeaked in to catch this show at Fringe Exhibitions before it went down yesterday, and I’m better for it. Dan is one of my favourite people – he combines an impressive enthusiasm and energy with the wit of a thoughtful critic, especially when he’s addressing public policy or environmental matters. His last solo project, Welcome Home, at Haus was delicious and challenging, and his container based video installation for our inaugural Art of the Waterfront/FR8 exhibition in 2006 was the hit of the festival. Dan seems able to do with his works what so many other video-based artists so often fail to do – interest the viewer. Sometimes I feel that many video artists hate the viewer, that their true goal is to test the viewer’s endurance or willingness to love – Dan does none of those things, but also doesn’t fall to the other extreme, that of simply providing a brief and easily digested entertainment.
The source imagery for Fate Machine is video shot at an industrial recycling plant, and the subject is the large toothed shredders that are used to reduce electronics and other large recyclables into shreds. All by themselves they are fascinating objects, but here Dan makes them mesmerizing. Objects appear on forklifts and are slowly and somewhat awkwardly fed into the bucket and teeth of the shredders. Once in the grinder, they are broken down in what I can only interpret as a death throe. A copier thrown into the bucket flips and jiggles recklessly and with savage energy as portions of it are caught in the teeth, until it is worn down to scrap and waste. It is not difficult for me to equate or metaphorise the death throes of the various pieces of office equipment with either our economy or our society, but that might just by my faith in/eagerness for the impending apocalypse jumping the gate.
Fate Machine consists of a trio of video projections, intercepted by a pair of angled scrims. The overall effect is that of a kaleidoscope, with the images fixing on a central axis and often dissolving or breaking into multi-axial deconstructions of the image. Constantly moving and shifting geometries, create a staggeringly beautiful image.
From multiple conversations that I’ve had with Dan since I’ve known him, I know that he’s particularly interested in the sheer volume of waste that our society produces, and is interested in the confrontation of the issues related to that waste and its eventual fate. In the simplest terms, this project combines the factory floor footage of an industrial documentary with the thoughtful and critical eye of the activist-artist, moving beyond the casual “it is what it is…” and into the territory of “this is what we are doing.” None of Dan’s video work (to my knowledge) involves imagery of individuals, the American public or any other mass of consumers – it is only the industrial and media infrastructure which is put on display – rendering the viewer as a representative and conduit for the greater public. This has a leveling effect, with the viewer unable to escape questioning their own actions and role in the process being addressed – plugging the viewer into the infrastructure that makes their way of life possible, of which they likely are only dimly aware.
Above: Cling wrapped electronics are fed into a shredder. At Top: The glistening teeth of a shredder await their next meal.
Technorati Tags: Danial Nord, Dan Nord, video art, installation art, Fringe, Fringe Exhibitions, art review, art, Chinatown, shredder, recycling
This was such a fantastic piece, it was so beautiful to watch these machines get obliterated and eaten up. However for me the best part was the noise, the sound of metal, plastic and electronic doodads had a white noise effect that was rather soothing in contrast to the destruction. The photos look great!