NIESATT
parallel worlds
Caught
between sleek animation and superb graphic seduction, JTwine’s
net-based work ‘NIESATT’ is alive with visual and emotional
charge. ‘I was dropped into the corporate world when I was 20
and I was disgusted by it. To express my unhappy situation I started
literally to draw myself out of it. Power structures, technology and
human relations became a Leitmotif in my work.’
The
issues JTwine grapples with are consumption, overload and pseudo-information.
The work has an ntelligence that is not pontificating to make one feel
uncomfortable. Arresting one’s imagination with the pace of animated
graphics, the issues that belie NIESATT-PARALLEL WORLDS present themselves
in short statements and sketches. And yet, the visual presentation and
narrative structure, which slyly glide between advertising, web-graphic
and simulated game styles, is unique enough to open the viewer to questions
rather than being a dumb receptor. His stance keeps the questions in
areas of exploration, seeking solutions, a space that is open-ended.
In
an interview, he says ‘I’m interested in truth not beauty.
Distortion or essentialisation might be necessary to create a true image
to reveal visions of the human drama on the battlefield of reality in
our commercialized and machine dependent world.’
JTwine’s
website, PHA GREYLAND has a number of such diaryistic logs that locate
him well enough for us to feel we know him. JTwine is a net-scribbler,
fusing his sketches, observations, and videos into a mini-world with
attributes of his sensations – visually audible noise. The site
is constantly unfolding, click by click, revealing layer upon layer
of involvement and introspection on issues of power
structures, technology and human relations. In NIESATT, the notion of
‘parallel worlds’ translates into dividing every inch of
the screen into slithers of multi-layered, scrolling, exploding, animated,
visual, wordy, flash, gifs; the website seems unlimited and unbound
by time and space constraints. One can get lost in it – but never
feel at a dead end for all the links, tunnel and merge into the world
of JTwine.
Then
again, we may question what draws one into this net-based work?
What is it that compels us to explore it? I’d say it’s the
sheer pleasure of the unexpected image, the artistic ‘time travel’,
and the visceral hand-drawn sketch with its dynamic high voltage 2D
screen avatar, which makes space for the throbbing vibrancy of the site.
Maybe this is the equivalent of submersive emotional intelligence on
the net.
Reviewer:
Darshana Vora
featured @ furtherfield.org