Popular Social Mechanics is not a workout at the local gym as you might think!
But an ongoing and participatory image installation by Sam Melser at the Lake House Arts Centre in Takapuna from 24 July 2017 - Saturday 26 August 2017 .
Come and take part. Leaf through the magazines provided to find an image that resonates with you, laminate it onsite and stick it on the ever growing collage on the wall!
Still puzzled? Sam's artist statement may enlighten you:
"Over the past few years I have integrated collage more and more into my work. Elements from pre-existing documents help build a hypothetical socio-cultural context that my work evolves in. I started a collection of presentations of prehistoric man whilst writing my PhD in Paris many years ago and my accumulation/collection instinct has grown from there. Now, characters form art history, popular science ands the media populate my paintings which have been reduced, more and more to theatrical "sets" , constructions of "special effects."
However the ambiguous nature of the forms in the paintings that float between the human, the mineral and the vegetal are in fact central to my concept of being. For me being is in-between.
To digest popular media such as magazines and at the same time academic or scientific material enables the ambivalence of perspective. Where does information stop and entertainment begin? Why do we care why some wealthy American actor is having an affair? Do we come from Aliens, giraffes or Father Christmas? Does it matter?
The walls of this image installation suggest an archealogical metaphor of layers where sketches, diagrams and finished polished works exist on the same level and together help to create a mythological story of a fantastic beast. The viewer can get lost in this cave of human consciousness and help me, the artist, trace its silhouette."
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