Untitled (Flat Screens)

From Andrew Frost…

The sheer ubiquity of the flat screen television screen has made it all but disappear from view. These screens and sets can be encountered in just about any social context, from airports and shopping centres to waiting rooms and bars, from train stations and cafes to the lounge, kitchen or bedroom. The appearance of flat screen TV on the side of the road – a sure sign that the technology had slipped from a prestige item into unremarkable land fill – was a testament to their cheapness and disposability. In an art context, the flat screen and its cousin the digital projector are the conduit by which just about all ‘new media’ is delivered and so rarely do we ever consider the TV set itself is perhaps further evidence that most new media artists are obsessed with image over material.

For Lucas Davidson, the flat screen TV is the basic stuff of his sculptural installations. With a mixture of wall works, free standing sculptures and painting-like renditions of the smashed residue of LCD and LED screens, Davidson takes the TV set away from the delivery of narrative into a whole other story – the recursive pleasure of metaphysical television – plastic, cable, static. Says the artist “The seductive and illusionary power of the digital landscape removes us from our immediate physical environment, creating a boundary-less state that profoundly alters perception, social relations and histories.”

May 7 to May 30
Dominik Mersch Gallery, Rushcutters Bay
Pic: Lucas Davidson, Pattern Recognition, 2015. Television components, AV chords, mounted on acrylic, 200cm x 200cm x 15cm