FORMATION V
BADEN PAILTHORPE (Australia)
Is humanity becoming a single machine?
Made using an Afghanistan-based war simulator developed developed with the U.S. military, Formation V explores the aesthetics and dynamics of military movement. The regimented unison and symmetry of the soldiers as they march across a desert becomes machine-like in the battalion's precision. Two opposing forces of US soldiers and Taliban combatants follow invisible way-points side-by-side. Oblivious to each other's presence thanks to a hacked game setting, the usual violence of this relationship is transformed into a poetic rhythm that repeats and amplifies the avatars movement. The hypnotic rhythm of war, in what is normally a powerful symbol of dystopia, becomes disturbingly utopian.
Baden Pailthorpe is part of a generation of artists whose practice is shaped by Internet culture. He is currently Postdoctoral Fellow at iCinema Research Centre, Art & Design, University of New South Wales in Sydney. He holds a PhD from the University of New South Wales, an MFA from l’Université Paris VIII, an MA from COFA, UNSW and a BA from the University of Sydney. Much of Baden’s work consists of hyper-real animations, video and sculpture that engage with the spatiality of power, politics and the cultures of late-capitalism. Exhibitions include GAME ART/VIDEO, 21st Triennale di Milano, Milan (2016); Students of War, Hors Pistes, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2014); Cadence, and Rencontres Internationales, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012).