MNG: You often include animals in your work that are distorted by human interaction - the sheep with jets under its skin, the cow with the train roller-coasting through it.
BB: These animals are the life blood of the New Zealand export economy. They are also part of my personal environment. I have lived in rural New Zealand for the last 15 years. My studio is often surrounded by sheep and cattle including our pets and those belonging to the farmer who uses our land.
These magical realist interactions that you mention, are metaphors of apocalyptic fear. The jets and trains that move under the skin of animals are darkly humorous, uncanny events that fit within the art paradigm of Maurizio Catelan. (I believe that Catelan legitimized humor in art more than any other contemporary artist.)
Apocalyptic fear has been endemic for years in film, literature and art. The traditional myth of the Apocalypse is filled with typically poetic mythic events such as water turning to blood, persecutions by dragons, and encounters with a woman clothed with the sun, the moon, and the stars. There have been plenty of quite realistic apocalyptic scenarios in my lifetime from several near misses of all-out nuclear war to the increasing possibility of scorched earth global warming.
I am an optimist and believe that human creativity, humor and rational critical thinking can improve our future as long as it is acted upon. As Noam Chomsky says, we don’t know what lies in the future or if our actions can help, but we can chose optimism. Inaction and fear will only guarantee pessimism.
MNG: In this exhibition you have used a lot of satellite images as backgrounds. Superimposed over these are a giant (if you consider them in relation to the satellite backgrounds) bridge, a cow, and a cathedral. What's your thinking about this scale relationship? It makes me think of power relationships...
MNG: And what about the Simpons? Why use Homer's nuclear power plant?
BB: The simply drawn cartoon of the Simpsons is transformed into the real (as is its meaning) with virtual photographic technology. A satellite photograph of a snow strewn countryside is mapped onto the surface of the 3D model providing a unique lifeless landscape. The Simpsons are seen as a form of reality by many, and many now feel they get a better grasp of current events from satirical shows such as the Daily Show or The Colbert Report (mostly in the USA, but also shown here on TV) than mainstream media news.
MNG: The granite mushroom cloud is almost a monument to nuclear energy. This work seems to walk the fine line between sinister and the celebratory... like a creepy businessman?
BB: It is. An acceptance of that which scares us provides the ability to overcome the obstacle. Finding beauty in the terrible has been a tactic in many art forms from the blues to the genre of apocalyptic films such as Mad Max or The Road, to the surreal work by David Lynch where good and evil are interchangeable and fluid. Mushroom clouds have an ominous beauty - a “terrible beauty” of Yeats.
MNG: What about the relationship between tiling in the computer graphics sense, and tiling over a computer screen, hard drive and printer?
BB: Tiling is a method of placing photographic or graphic imagery over a 3D digital model to give the appearance of realism - “virtual reality”. In this instance I tried to reverse the process by tiling hyperrealist tiles over old computers who “print out” a virtual model of themselves. The title “Existence Precedes Essence”, the famous existential quote by Sartre is meant to be ironic. Computers are the very essence of essence.
Also in a sense it is the opposite of Rachel Whiteread’s method of filling space between and within an object - instead I enclose objects.
MNG: And the bricked in television?
BB: Yes this is the same as the tiles, though the brick is far more earthy – not shiny or “pretty”. Along with the computer, TV is the main vehicle for transmitting knowledge these days. Here it is rendered inert and ironic.
MNG: The gnomes are like the everyman. They were from another project right?
BB: The sculpture project, 'Primitive Accumulation' was a 1500 mm x 1500 mm x 1500 mm cube-like structure consisting of approximately 1500 garden gnomes. It began conceptually as a reaction to the abuse of cheap labour from China - as the old joke goes, “just wait until the communists take over!”
Ironically gnomes were banned in East Germany as symbols of the bourgeoisie. Gnomes now are associated with kitsch, not at all bourgeois... whatever that means. Communism has/had as much to do with social justice and socialisms as it did with democracy in those “socialist democratic republics”.
The title, Primitive Accumulation is derived from both the Marxist economic term “primitive accumulation” and economist Adam Smith’s term “original accumulation”. Both terms refer to the foundation of capitalism and "the accumulation of stock" as a precondition for the division of labour. With primitive accumulation “large swaths of the population are violently divorced from their traditional means of self-sufficiency” (Robert Gehl). Essentially the economy is kick started with the aid of dispossessed and desperate labourers who may (...or may not) create enough wealth for subsequent generations to enjoy.
But basically I thought it was just weird idea that would look interesting. When the temporary sculpture was destroyed I immediately thought of a method to try to reconstruct the ruins of the old work, and resin was the ideal material since it froze the materials in time as if drooped into a vehicle for suspended animation. Ten gnomes looked as if they were drowning. I have restructured materials since art school in the late seventies.
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