Mark Tholander :: Artist Homepage

Be a Pattern for the World
Video, 2018

Be a Pattern for the World is a think tank collaboration between Piscine and the artist duo Aeron Bergman & Alejandra Salinas. The collaboration takes the form of nine banners, a video and a clothing line. The project was first presented at Alt_Cph18, Copenhagen’s Alternative Art Fair, in Denmark. After the fair, the collaboration was shown at the Institute for New Connotative Action in Portland, United States, as well as at The Poor Farm, in Wisconsin, United States, as a part of The Great Poor Farm Experiment 2018.

Be a Pattern for the World circulates around the concept of the chameleon. The chameleon as an abstract machine: “The chameleon, maybe. It hovers, as a turbine. An object can be monitored better by the turbine. These days anything can be imitated.” The chameleon most of all stands for shape-shifting and adaptability. Adapting patterns of a given environment, while at the same time creating new patterns in the given space. The ability of changing one’s appearance as a response to one’s surroundings. What can be seen and what cannot; blending in and standing out; becoming distinct while also becoming part of the given space. The chameleon is the abstract machine which initiates a production of subjectivity in the relation between the individual and the surroundings, the figure and the background, the shape and the pattern, as well as the singular and the univocal. And what then? The possibility of parasitic subversive activity? Or maybe an ideal product for the contemporary consumer?

Exhibited at Alt_Cph18 Over-existing (Copenhagen, Denmark), INCA Institute of New Connotative Action (Portland, USA), The Poor Farm (Wisconsin, USA) and Fuego CDMX (Mexico City, Mexico).

Full documentation at: https://piscine.dk/be-a-pattern-for-the-world/

Articles:
e-flux: https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/209558/the-great-poor-farm-experiment-2018/
IDOART: www.idoart.dk/beapatternfortheworld