Book of Veles 3 - Morning Cityscape
2021 - NFT (NFT)
Jonas Bendiksen
For his project Book of Veles artist Jonas Bendiksen travelled to the small city of Veles in North Macedonia, inspired by a series of press reports starting in 2016, that revealed Veles as a major source of the fake news stories flooding Facebook and other social media sites celebrating Donald Trump and denigrating Hillary Clinton. Scores of young people in the impoverished city had discovered that they could make a decent living by fabricating and circulating stories online. Originally presented as a book, Bendiksen’s haunting images show the city of Veles and its inhabitants. A man leans out of a window of a large apartment block, a pair of satellite dishes hanging nearby. A woman sits on an unmade bed, gazing into the screen of a laptop. Grainy and dimly lit, the images are eerie, poignant, and beautiful. They’re also fake. Bendiksen’s project also references an historical tale, the original Book of Veles , involving a story about a pre-Christian pagan bear-god (called Veles) from a manuscript discovered in 1919. While this religious-historical epic is popular today among Russian nationalists, professional academics have concluded it is actually a forgery—a piece of fake news from the 1920s Bendiksen did make two trips to Veles in 2019 and 2020, but he didn’t photograph any people. He shot pictures of buildings, land and cityscapes, and when he returned home to Norway he used video-game-production software to transform the images into three-dimensional renderings. Using a game engine, he built 3D models of people and objects and placed them inside the scenes, carefully adjusting their poses, clothing, and lighting to make everything look as realistic as possible. When the book of the final images was originally published, the project was celebrated as photojournalism, and it wasn’t until Bendiksen made a public announcement that it became clear that it was a fake story about real people, who made fake news. After the reveal, the project was covered in almost 100 articles in the worldwide press.
Jonas Bendiksen is a Norwegian-American artist and photographer whose work addresses enclaves, people on the fringes of society, and those living in isolated communities. His first published book, titled Satellites – Photographs from the Fringes of the former Soviet Union (2006), looked at separatist republics in the former USSR. In 2005 Bendiksen started a project titled The Places We Live about a different type of enclave – the urban slum. This project became a three-year journey through four slum communities around the world. In 2008 it became a book and exhibition featuring projections and voice recordings in a three-dimensional installation. Bendiksen’s work also considers faith and religion, and its place in society. His book, The Last Testament (2017), is about people who claim to be the Second Coming of Christ.
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Jonas Bendiksen
2021For his project Book of Veles artist Jonas Bendiksen travelled to the small city of Veles in North Macedonia, inspired by a series of press reports starting in 2016, that revealed Veles as a major source of the fake news stories flooding Facebook and other social media sites celebrating Donald Trump and denigrating Hillary Clinton...
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The latest exhibition at England's Baltic sets a whole new bar for showing art in a climate crisis Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Green is the New Black blog The latest exhibition at England's Baltic sets a whole new bar for showing art in a climate crisis Stepping Softly on the Earth embodies the themes of sustainability and interconnectedness both in its theme and how it has been put together Sponsored by Louisa Buck 6 February 2024 Share Stepping Softly on the Earth brings together work by more than 20 artists from across the world, whom together challenge our human-centred perspective Photo: John McKenzie @ Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art Green is the new black In this monthly column, Louisa Buck looks at how the art world is responding to the environmental and climate crisis...
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Jonas Bendiksen
2021For his project Book of Veles artist Jonas Bendiksen travelled to the small city of Veles in North Macedonia, inspired by a series of press reports starting in 2016, that revealed Veles as a major source of the fake news stories flooding Facebook and other social media sites celebrating Donald Trump and denigrating Hillary Clinton...
© » KADIST
Jonas Bendiksen
2021For his project Book of Veles artist Jonas Bendiksen travelled to the small city of Veles in North Macedonia, inspired by a series of press reports starting in 2016, that revealed Veles as a major source of the fake news stories flooding Facebook and other social media sites celebrating Donald Trump and denigrating Hillary Clinton...
© » KADIST
Jonas Bendiksen
2021For his project Book of Veles artist Jonas Bendiksen travelled to the small city of Veles in North Macedonia, inspired by a series of press reports starting in 2016, that revealed Veles as a major source of the fake news stories flooding Facebook and other social media sites celebrating Donald Trump and denigrating Hillary Clinton...
© » KADIST
Jonas Bendiksen
2021For his project Book of Veles artist Jonas Bendiksen travelled to the small city of Veles in North Macedonia, inspired by a series of press reports starting in 2016, that revealed Veles as a major source of the fake news stories flooding Facebook and other social media sites celebrating Donald Trump and denigrating Hillary Clinton...
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Andrés Pereira Paz
2018Juan III (Pescadores En Una Isla) is a series of embroideries made with fake pre-Columbian fabrics produced by the Gonzales family, a three-generation family of pre-Columbian textile “forgers” based in Lima, Peru...
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Minouk Lim
2012The Possibility of the Half by Minouk Lim is a two-channel video projection that begins with a mirror image of a weeping woman kneeling on the ground...
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Replying to DRASH’s invitation to take part in a DVD edition including various interviews of curators – broadcasted during the exhibition “Curating Degree Zero Archive” (June 16 – July 8, 2007 – Point Ephémère, Paris), Le Bureau / proposes the film of the exhibition 1972 , which will be shot at the Kadist Art Foundation in Paris...
