BADEN PAILTHORPE FORMATIONS
BADEN PAILTHORPE FORMATIONS 26 July - 19 August 2012
© Martin Browne Contemporary © All images copyright Baden Pailthorpe This catalogue is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. COMPILER: Electra Foley COLOUR SEPARATIONS: Spitting Image, Sydney PRINTING: Southern Colour, Sydney ISBN: 978-0-9872516-1-9
Cover Image: Very Few Good Men, 2012, HD video, 16:9, colour, sound, 2 minutes, ed. 5 + 2 AP
LIST OF WORKS Formation VII, 2012, two-channel HD video, 16:9, colour, sound, 3 minutes 35 seconds, ed. 5 + 2 AP HALO, 2012, two-channel HD video, 16:9, colour, sound, 2 minutes 40 seconds, ed. 5 + 2 AP Very Few Good Men, 2012, HD video, 16:9, colour, sound, 2 minutes, ed. 5 + 2 AP
In his first solo exhibition with Martin Browne Contemporary, Baden Pailthorpe presents Formations, a series of three video and new media artworks that poetically subvert the politics and aesthetics of the military. Created by remixing Hollywood cinema and manipulating US military training simulators, Pailthorpe’s striking artworks make clear references to abstraction, landscape and performance – at the same time closely engaging with the classic military strategies of heightened perception, deception, camouflage and confusion. In HALO, 2012, we are party to a graceful yet helpless moment, as both a US soldier and a Taliban fighter fall from the heavens over Afghanistan. The sky in this work acts as a blind witness to their beautifully doomed flight, levelling the folly of human conflict to the sublime and eternal indifference of nature. This two-channel video work derives its title from the military acronym, High Altitude Low Opening, and describes a specialised kind of military skydive. Pailthorpe plays on the poetic resonances that the word halo conjures, wedged uncomfortably between military jargon and spiritual transcendence. Formation VII, 2012, mobilises similar visual poetry. The latest work in an ongoing series of ‘marching performances’, this two-channel video work is set within the US military’s simulated version of Afghanistan. Rather than using this training software to simulate violence or military encounter, instead Pailthorpe gives a group of soldiers the simplest of orders: walk. Through this minor gesture of resistance, a striking aesthetic of repetition from the simulator’s own code is revealed. The multiple of each individual body creates a kind of corporeal sculpture. As is prevalent in military vocabulary, reference to the collective body (such as the Marine Corps) connotes the machine-like structure and strength that follows a military formation of disciplined bodies. Perhaps the most universal and often political of human actions, walking is used by Pailthorpe as a device to uncover pockets of resistance from within even the most closed, controlled and constructed of environments: military simulations. In contrast, Very Few Good Men, 2012, appropriates footage from a classic military film and pushes it to the limits of abstraction. In this work, the traditional Marine Corps drill is subject to the brutal treatment of contemporary remix culture and its own coded discipline. Here the military becomes the target of its own aesthetic strategies of uniform, camouflage and deception as the aesthetics of military ritual are subverted, inverted, perverted and corrupted to the point of absurdity. What remains is a stunning burst of visual and sonic energy that creates its own formations of aesthetic dominance and political rite. BIOGRAPHY Baden Pailthorpe is a young Australian interdisciplinary artist whose research-based art practice spans video, photography, gaming, sound, text and installation. His work engages with the political, cultural and conceptual potential of technologies in their most diverse forms. Pailthorpe’s work has been widely exhibited and published, with close to thirty solo and group exhibitions, both in Australia and internationally. Currently, Baden Pailthorpe is a doctoral research candidate in the School of the Arts and Media at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, where he is a recipient of the prestigious Research Excellence Award and two other scholarships. His work has also been funded with grants from the Australia Council for the Arts, and the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA).
Formation VII, 2012, two-channel HD video, 16:9, colour, sound, 3 minutes 35 seconds, ed. 5 + 2 AP
To view the Formation VII preview video please CLICK HERE
Formation VII, 2012, two-channel HD video, 16:9, colour, sound, 3 minutes 35 seconds, ed. 5 + 2 AP
HALO, 2012, two-channel HD video, 16:9, colour, sound, 2 minutes 40 seconds, ed. 5 + 2 AP
To view the HALO preview video please CLICK HERE
HALO, 2012, two-channel HD video, 16:9, colour, sound, 2 minutes 40 seconds, ed. 5 + 2 AP
Very Few Good Men, 2012, HD video, 16:9, colour, sound, 2 minutes, ed. 5 + 2 AP
To view the Very Few Good Men preview video please CLICK HERE
Very Few Good Men, 2012, HD video, 16:9, colour, sound, 2 minutes, ed. 5+ 2 AP
BADEN PAILTHORPE Born 1984, Canberra, Australia Lives and works in Sydney, Australia EDUCATION Current
Doctor of Philosophy (Art, Media & Politics) The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
2011
Master of Fine Art (Art & New Media) l’Université Paris VIII, Vincennes — Saint-Denis, Paris, France
2009
Master of Art (Photomedia) The College of Fine Arts, UNSW, Sydney, Australia
2007
Bachelor of Arts - (French Studies, Arabic & Islamic Studies) The University of Sydney, Australia
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2012
Formations, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney, Australia
2012
Lingua Franca, Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2010
Twist, Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2010
Other v2.0, Inflight A.R.I, Hobart, Australia
2010
Other v2.0, Kings A.R.I., Melbourne, Australia
2008
Translocality, Oh Really Gallery, Sydney, Australia
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2013
Ludic Dissonance (working title), Screen Space, Melbourne, Australia (Curatorial project)
2012
Café des Espérances, Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen, The Netherlands
2012
FILE 2012, Sao Paulo, Brazil
2012
Yes, We’re Open, The Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk), Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2012
HRAFF, No Vacancy Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2012
Action Frame, Elita Milano, Teatro Franco Parenti, Milan, Italy
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS (CONTINUED) 2012
Game Change, Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, USA
2011
Prosume This, BEKO, Berlin, Germany
2011
Pixel Pops!, Galerie Nouvel Organon, Paris, France
2011
Poles Apart, Blindside Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2011
Firstdraft 25, Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2011
Monobandes II, Les Territoires, Montréal, Canada
2011
Lingua Franca, Re-new Digital Arts Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark
2011
Twist, Games Culture Circle, HBC, Berlin, Germany
2009
Doug Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize, Online exhibition, Sydney, Australia
2009
Mugshots, Oh Really Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2009
COFA Annual, College of Fine Arts, UNSW, Sydney, Australia
2009
Winter Set, Marker Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
GRANTS AND AWARDS 2012
Curator Mentorship Initiative (with Screen Space), National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA)
2012
Research Excellence Award, Ph.D Scholarship, UNSW
2011
Faculty Top-Up Ph.D Scholarship, Arts & Social Sciences, UNSW
2011
Australian Post-Graduate Award (APA), 3 year Ph.D Scholarship, UNSW
2011
New Work (emerging) Grant, The Australia Council for the Arts, Australia
2011 1st Place, Masters by Research (Arts Plastiques), l’Université Paris VIII, France 2009 The Dean’s List for Academic Excellence, College of Fine Arts, UNSW 2009 Doug Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize (Semi-Finalist)