6:00 minutes
Oliver Laric’s video Versions is part of an ongoing body of work that has continued to evolve and mutate over time. Comprised of several video and sculptural works that share the same title, the Versions series reflects Laric’s key concerns: the mutability of images and objects and the negotiation between original and copy. In this video, we see several 3D renders of recognizable objects and places, while an ubiquitous feminized robotic voice that evokes the domestic familiarity of voice recognition tools such as Siri and Alexa, speaks of issues relating to identity, language, and translation. Formally, these concepts are reflected through strategies of doubling, mirroring, translating, transferring and mimicking: images of ancient Greek busts are reproduced in postal stamps for Mali and Peru; two popular Disney characters dancing side by side reveal how the same motion was used for both of them; and iconic basketball moments are immortalized both through photographs and interpretations in Manga comics. In addition to the formal strategies, there’s an array of historical references that bring the same concerns to the fore, including a piece by piece architectural render of the Ise Shrine, which is demolished and rebuilt every 20 years as part of Shinto belief system of death, renewal, and the impermanence of all things. Another key reference that appears in many of Laric’s videos and sculptural works is the bust of Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu, Laric’s interest centered around the proliferation of adaptations of his ancient military treatise Art of War, which have been disseminated globally.
Oliver Laric is a Berlin-based, Austrian multimedia artist whose work is centered around issues of authorship, originality, and ownership—with a specific interest in visual culture in the digital age. His work and broad research addresses an ongoing history of the mutability of objects and images. From ideas of copyright to examples of iconoclasm (the destruction of religious iconography), Laric’s focus is on how objects and images are continually re-represented, appropriated, remixed, augmented and modified. Several of Laric’s work evolve over time, at times relying on the voracious contribution of online communities. From 2006–2012, for example, Laric was part of the project VVORK, an art blog as exhibition space, which gained a large following and led to the group working as a curatorial collective. He has also collaborated with a range of museums to make 3D scans of sculptures available and free to download online. Even his own sculptural practice is often based on versions of classical and neoclassical sculptures, which he then reinterprets. His interest in reinscribing or opening up material, however, is not in the new or hybrid objects that result, but rather the moment of transfer, the metamorphosis of objects into other objects or images, and the endless potential of mutability. That is what Laric tries to capture.
Weekly Picks: Indonesia (18 - 24 February 2019) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Weekly To Do February 18, 2019 Top Picks of Indonesia art events in Bali, Bandung and Jakarta from 18-24 February 2019 To celebrate the TiTian Art Space’s 3rd Anniversary, the art space and organization presents EXPLORATION , a group exhibition that serves also as an initiative to encourage artists to break boundaries...
London’s Tate Modern encouraged visitors to browse through its digitised collection of over 77 thousand artworks, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art produced 360° virtual tours of its spaces and, closer home, the National Museum in New Delhi kept up with its patrons through regular informative posts on Instagram....
Video: meet the artists of the Young Artists' Summer Show 2023 | Blog | Royal Academy of Arts Gallery view of the Young Artists’ Summer Show 2023 at the Royal Academy of Arts, London © Royal Academy of Arts / David Parry Video: meet the artists of the Young Artists’ Summer Show 2023 Read more Become a Friend Video: meet the artists of the Young Artists’ Summer Show 2023 Published 28 July 2023 Hear from some of the artists in this year’s Young Artists’ Summer Show as they tell us the stories behind their works selected for display at the RA...
The American Scholar: Hey Siri, Call Webster - Kelly McMasters Tuning Up - Winter 2024 Hey Siri, Call Webster Subscription required When it comes to learning new words, it’s not where you look them up that’s important By Kelly McMasters | December 4, 2023 Illustration by Matt Rota Not long ago, my son asked me about the meaning of a word in a novel he was reading for his fifth-grade book club...
The 139 Best Book Covers of 2023 ‹ Literary Hub Craft and Criticism Fiction and Poetry News and Culture Lit Hub Radio Reading Lists Book Marks CrimeReads About Log In Literary Hub Craft and Criticism Literary Criticism Craft and Advice In Conversation On Translation Fiction and Poetry Short Story From the Novel Poem News and Culture The Virtual Book Channel Film and TV Music Art and Photography Food Travel Style Design Science Technology History Biography Memoir Bookstores and Libraries Freeman’s Sports The Hub Lit Hub Radio Behind the Mic Beyond the Page The Cosmic Library Emergence Magazine Fiction/Non/Fiction First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing Just the Right Book Keen On Literary Disco The Literary Life with Mitchell Kaplan The Maris Review New Books Network Open Form Otherppl with Brad Listi So Many Damn Books Thresholds Tor Presents: Voyage Into Genre Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast WMFA Reading Lists The Best of the Decade Book Marks Best Reviewed Books BookMarks Daily Giveaway CrimeReads True Crime The Daily Thrill CrimeReads Daily Giveaway Log In The 139 Best Book Covers of 2023 We Asked 46 Designers for Their Favorites By Emily Temple December 12, 2023 For what is now the eighth time in a row, I am pleased to present the best book covers of the year—as chosen by some of the industry’s best book cover designers...
In the video Color Strip by Elsa Werth two-dimensional versions of all the national flags of the world (197 in all) are compiled into a long horizontal strip...
Weekly Picks: Malaysia (11–17 Feb 2019) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Weekly To Do February 10, 2019 Jazz It Up For Charity, at ALOFT KL Sentral, 16 Feb, 7pm A night of entertainment, with singers Elvira Arul, Sean Ghazi, Datuk Yusni Hamid, and Malaysian beauty pageant queen Sanjna Suri...
The film called Temps Mort (Dead Time or Time Out) presents an exchange of short video footage assembled into one final edit...
Metal: An Improbable Alchemy of Dance And Heavy Metal | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints Gregory Lorenzutti February 28, 2020 The following review is made possible through a Critical Residency programme supported by By Carolyn Oei (762 words, 5-minute read) I am not a fan of heavy metal music – or heavy metal anything – so I took my seat in the Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne, with trepidation...
Torch the Place: Shedding the Dead Weight | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Jeff Busby February 27, 2020 The following review is made possible through a Critical Residency programme supported by By Nabilah Said (800 words, 5-minute read) The first thing one sees upon entering the Fairfax Studio in Arts Centre Melbourne for Torch the Place is a huge mountain covered in cloth, and an old piano...