Inside Outside Inside On presents work by a group of emerging artists from Australia and the Philippines who seek to investigate and manifest internal aspects of human experience. The artists in this exhibition look underneath clothes, behind eyelids, beneath the skin, and inside the mind, extracting and exploring what they find to reveal that which is usually hidden from view. From flesh and entrails to violent fantasies and visual hallucinations, inner worlds and workings are externalized for all to see. Any sense of violation is negated by the artists’ active participation in this act. It is both confronting and comforting to be in this way exposed to ourselves.
THE PEEPING JUAN: VOYEURISM IN THE TIME OF INFOTAINMENT, 2016 6.4 ft. x 6.4 ft.x 7.6 ft. Installation Components: Recycled newspapers, TV, wood, cctv cameras, lights, paint, glue, performer, cable wires
About the work:
The Modern-day Juan is an observer. However, he is not a passive one. In fact, he is right in the middle of media frenzy. He watches pervasively at the happenings around him daily, digest the news he reads, and stimulates his senses quickly and gratifyingly on social media. Thus, our very own Juan 2.0 has become a willing voyeur: preying on other people’s private and revealing moments, sordid and sensational information, and much too often, those that are just off the grid. The media has tantalized us with a luscious parallel world of perfect images. We salivate and lust for more. Our appetite for information becomes insatiable. But in truth, our quest for infotainment has become rather masturbatory. Mass media has given us porn to fodder our self-gratification. We have turned away from unbiased journalism and straight into the arms of reality-based, mediated voyeurism. In Peeping Juan, our utopian dreams of having unadulterated media content is once again explored, but even if the truth is exposed, will Juan be ready to embrace it as the new normal? Or will he go back to his scopophiliac content?
