Faculty of Art

Integrated Media

Max Lester

Bad Circuit

A video plays on loop on an old model flat screen that rests on the floor against an Orange Home Depot Bucket. A flexible metal conduit comes out of the bucket, wrapping around the screen, partially filled with cement. Miscellaneous objects such as blue cables and a car emblem are set into the concrete. While cement typically signifies the sleek sturdiness of modernity, this ambiguous yet architectural object reveals cement as viscous and malleable. In highlighting the cement in this deliquescent state, this object brings to mind other structures that present themselves as natural and unmoveable.On screen, two figures bleed into a background of slimy images of grocery stores, body parts, shopping malls, and peculiar scenes—they have found themselves in a mess. Some of these images were found drifting online, others are snapshots of found moments taken on a phone camera in a knee-jerk-reaction. These images, reinflated and abstracted in cinema 4D, capture ruptive or jarring events: moments that at a glance might cause their viewer to fall out of their serial rhythm or question the realness of a given situation. These images are a disruption of flow, allowing for the potential to destabilize the neutrality of these presented structures and conventions.

“One actor says to the other, “I am leaking, so are you.” The other replies, “oh what a mess we’ve made.” This moment speaks to the figures’ realization of their own intersubjectivity: they are intertwined in a network of people, objects, architecture, social hegemonies, economies and political structures. At this point in the video, these once alienated characters who had stood in a barren landscape, become enclosed by their sticky surroundings, finding themselves the conductors of intensity, action, and affect.”