New Horizons
Pineapple Black - Middlesbrough Art Weekender/ Middlesbrough, UK
22 - 25 Sept 2022
We live in an attention economy where new instantly becomes old. Everything that comes into existence today is swiftly commodified, corporatised & coded for mass distribution where it is endlessly copied, remixed & reposted.
Embracing modern day conveniences such as Amazon next day delivery, AI image generation & instant access to all images Michael Pybus has created “New Horizons” - a multi disciplinary installation transforming the window space at Black Pineapple, as part of the MAW exhibition programme, into a cryptically celebratory environment that evokes the aesthetics of party & play culture as a means to sardonically reflect upon our times.
By using mechanisms such as inverting meanings, digital generation & liberal reconfiguration Pybus surfs the visual deluge of our present day, subjecting it to a relentless process of re-amalgamation. Channeling our over stimulated collective consciousness, original meanings are corrupted then rerouted to give birth to unexpected narratives. Resulting in works which appear to exist as corrupted projections from a twisted parallel universe.
For “New Horizons” Pybus has created a new series of sculptures riffing on Martin Kippenberger’s “Disco Bomb” works from the late 1980s which comprised of large mirror balls nesting is various coloured wigs. In Pybus’ versions he corrupts the celebratory energy of mirror balls & rainbow hair by sculpturally reconfiguring them into parasitic entities that are in the process of obliterating cute fluffy soft toys from Nintendo’s best selling game “Animal Crossing: New Horizons”.
The game was launched in 2020 just as we were going into worldwide lockdowns. It required players to construct & constantly maintain an immaculate utopian island of manicured gardens & pretty houses to keep the cast of cute animal characters happy. At a time when so much of our freedom & autonomy were being forcibly removed from us, a game which encouraged users to ignore reality in favour of losing themselves in the micro-management of a “perfect” virtual reality made it a global phenomenon.
A new large format painting spanning over 14ft looms over the entire installation. A warped tableau to contemporary society featuring a collective of characters indulging in narcissistic self indulgence, high thrills and exigent performances as they clamor for attention from the digital hive mind of social media.
Pybus’ iconoclastic approach challenges the hierarchal spectrum of cultural & consumer objects that make up our world. He explores the governing conditions of artistic production & examines the societal functions inherent in our rampant media consumption. In an uncanny symbiosis of suggestion & appropriation Pybus creates a de-hierarchized system that darkly reflects our age of constant distraction, where we are kept high & wired by an ever growing algorithmic tsunami of new wants, fears, desires, styles & modes of being.