Nexus, 2018
Mixed media installation
247 x 295 x 645 cm
All work and photographs © Asa Desouza-Jones
Asa Desouza-Jones
About the artist
In my practice, I explore the accidental and contingent as positive opportunities within art production to create new experiences beyond the functional qualities of mass-produced equipment.
Education:
Central Saint Martins, MA Contemporary Photography; Practices & Philosophies: 2016 – 2018
Nottingham Trent University, BA Photography: 2007 - 2010
For an up to date CV including exhibitions, please visit the artist's website
About the work
The proliferation of images as substitutes for the physical world has resulted in humans becoming passive users of screens; experiencing the world through images. This dominant situation promises an often illusory representation of realities.
In Nexus, visitors walk through a corridor enclosed by polythene plastic sheeting. These sheets had been deliberately and previously left to accumulate the unintentional paint from others working in a communal spray paint room.
The zip doorways and paint stained plastic sheeting, evoke the environment of a scientific laboratory. Instead of using these sheets in the traditional way: to protect surfaces from contamination during construction works, the stained sheets act like a recording surface collecting the formation of images, similar to the photographic process.
Concurrently an intermittent projected flash of light from the far end has connotations of a camera flash. This illuminates the environment and distorts the sight of participants while also drawing them through the corridor towards the final section. This contains a darkened iPad screen on an eroded and swollen piece of sheet steel.
In a sense, the corridor creates a route similar to physically entering the back of a screen, through a production lab of images and exiting at the front revealing the illusion of representation.
Text provided by the artist
Links
Artist website: asadesouzajones.co.uk
Instagram: @asadesouzajones