Embark on a poignant journey through societal reflection with In The Mudline – a digital exhibition crafted by artist Guy Lobwein.
Set during the 2022 Meanjin Floods, In the Mudline uses digital artmaking to reflect on feelings of agentive paralysis in contemporary society, caught between virtual spectacle and looming catastrophe.
TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE EXHIBITION…
Guy Lobwein (GL): In the Mudline is a reflection on my own paralysis in the face of overwhelming crisis. With climate change, political instability, and escalating global conflict, challenging the physical world we live and work in, increasingly I see digital and screen-centric technologies like moving image and video games as complicit in the ever-expanding catastrophes of recent years.
As an artist who also uses these technologies in my practice, this exhibition considers the problematic nature of continuously developing and consuming digital technology while our physical reality is in desperate need of care. Set during the 2022 Meanjin floods, the exhibition explores this discourse through reflecting on feelings of agentive paralysis in contemporary society, caught between virtual spectacle and looming catastrophe.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AS AN ARTIST?
GL: My practice emerged from a deep desire to ‘experience’ the artworks I was interested in. Because of this, I have long experimented with immersive technologies such as moving image, 3D computer-graphics, and virtual reality.
These mediums, as well as game engines and 3D rendering software, have become essential in my practice because they enable me to create work in a variety of technological outputs — whether that be moving image or virtual reality headsets.
However, while much of my practice involves making with digital technology, in my work I am constantly looking for ways to subvert or be critical of it. I believe that over the last few decades, the rapid proliferation of virtual and digital technologies has transformed human spatial perception in unprecedented ways, totally reengineering our lived experience of the world. Because of this, my own disenchantment with these technologies has prompted me to find new modes of making to create critical and reflective digital experiences.
WHO INSPIRES YOU AND WHY?
GL: The avant-garde experiments of the 1920s have been a continuous source of inspiration for my work. Facing techno-social changes that are arguably comparable to our own, artists in the movements of Dada, Constructivism, and the Bauhaus School, developed rigorous practices that interrogated space, experience, and immersion — Kurt Schwitters, Lavinia Schulz, and El Lizzitsky to name a few.
As pioneers of immersive installation and performance art, I have found their practices to be extremely influential when considering new ways of making within the sometimes-rigid processes of game engines and 3D rendering software.
HOW DID YOU DISCOVER YOUR LOVE FOR VISUAL ARTS?
GL: For me, visual art has always been a way of making sense of the world. Whether using drawing, computer graphics, performance, or sound, practicing as an artist allows me to consider and reflect on what the world is made up of.
I am very much of the ethos that all ‘things’ can be material for making. In this way, visual art enables me to create my own self-contained worlds. Here, I am reminded that while sometimes filled with agonising bureaucratic processes, invisible algorithms, and post-truth politics, our world is malleable, and can be changed.
Catch In the Mudline at the Metro Arts Galleries 16 MAR – 6 APR, West Village, West End.
Click here for gallery opening times.
