James Hornsby
The Third Quarter Gallery
2019
The Center Cannot Hold: James Hornsby’s Visual Meltdown (i)
Don’t Get Your Hopes Up is the apt title of this new body of work by James Hornsby. His images forecast an imminent apocalypse brewing beneath the frenzied temperament of the digital age. Hornsby’s doomsday is scored by the deafening cacophony of Cyberspace — where the panicked time signatures of Twitter updates and Instagram ‘likes’ are ceaseless and omnipresent.
Through visual chanting, Hornsby conjure’s the haunting and cautionary voice of late cultural theorist Mark Fisher. Best known for his brazen critique of capitalism, Fisher was a rigorous scholar of 21st Century malaise. He argued that the significant and well-documented decline of mental health in recent decades is the defining symptom of our time. In his 2013 lecture, Cyberspace-time Crisis, Fisher located communication technologies as central to this issue; outlining the ‘schizophrenic subjectivity’ of our ‘information blitz’ .
Through visual chanting, Hornsby conjure’s the haunting and cautionary voice of late cultural theorist Mark Fisher. Best known for his brazen critique of capitalism, Fisher was a rigorous scholar of 21st Century malaise. He argued that the significant and well-documented decline of mental health in recent decades is the defining symptom of our time. In his 2013 lecture, Cyberspace-time Crisis, Fisher located communication technologies as central to this issue; outlining the ‘schizophrenic subjectivity’ of our ‘information blitz’ .
He considered communication technology as a form of ‘techno-amphetamine’ which—through the immensity of information input— subsumes all time, disables us from constructing a coherent self, and leads us into a ‘radical ontological precariousness’. Hornsby’s work vividly recalls this dizzying communication catastrophe. His photographs fragment and dismember their subjects, and his barbaric digital mutilation is reminiscent of a nightmarish, drug-induced mania.
Produced through a technical and labour intensive process, every image is carefully created in Hornsby’s photography studio, only to be repeatedly and unflinchingly vandalised. His weapon of choice is the digital retouching software usually relegated to the role of image correction and perfection. This ‘misuse’ of his tools subverts the slick aspirations of commercial photography and undermines the capitalist narrative that self-expression must convert to market value.
Produced through a technical and labour intensive process, every image is carefully created in Hornsby’s photography studio, only to be repeatedly and unflinchingly vandalised. His weapon of choice is the digital retouching software usually relegated to the role of image correction and perfection. This ‘misuse’ of his tools subverts the slick aspirations of commercial photography and undermines the capitalist narrative that self-expression must convert to market value.
In addition to his disruptive creative process, Hornsby summons the anarchy of the last century to really drive his message home. In “LIVE FAST, DIE YOUNG” we see direct references to the famously explosive paintings of Jean Michel Basquiat; “BURNOUT” reimagines the alarmingly fleshy portraits of Francis Bacon; and “GLORIOUS” is reminiscent of the dark surrealism typical of David Lynch films. Through his many nods to renegade figureheads of art history, Hornsby provides the weight bearing required to support his unhinged revelations. These dystopian visions illuminate the collective mental distress of our time, and with any luck, Hornsby’s assault on our senses may shock us out of our digital delirium.
James Hornsby
Flesh Car Valet: Don’t Get Your Hopes Up
Installation View
2019