AC: The subjects of the paintings that represent our "clean future" are women and those representing our "dirty future" are men. What is the significance of choosing these polar opposites?

JB: To be completely honest, I feel that aggression and violence are historically masculine in nature. The ideas of promise and fertility were essential in defining women. Their reproductive potential is woven into the cleanliness of digital technology:the earbud cord even leads to a grommet near their belly. I mean "fertility" in the sense of economic or aesthetic, more than biological.

I needed the women to have an anonymity that modernism always promised, a clean white space that has inevitably affected the practice of art in a great way. The men stem from a post-apocalyptic setting, mostly displayed in these basement and bunker settings. They are the scavengers of civilization, and exist in a singular anarchistic state. This is a crucial division between the social orders of the genders. The female paintings take on an almost communist sensibility in terms of solidarity. I've always been at odds with this depiction of uniform in sci-fi films. It seems like such a communistic utopia, while feeling like it's trying to exist within a wildly exaggerated version of capitalism. In short, they can be compressed into simple ideas like disaster vs. peace. I've reconciled with the fact that they can be as deep or as shallow as you wish of them.

(Actually, right now Rob Riggle, of The Daily Show) is dressed in Mad Max gear a la Thunderdome, set in a skit in "Bartertown, OH" commenting on the price of gas for this Memorial Day weekend. Apparently these ideas are more prevalent in pop-culture than we realize.)

 

AC:  The iPod is so ubiquitous today, what is it that interests you about this technology?

JB:  If you look at Kubrick, or early Lucas, they were insistent on responding to modernism in their set designs, and in so doing, helped give an image to the 'modern future'. Somehow this has translated to Steve Job's view of a seamless design future. I am interested in the psychology of deeming something white, seamless, and glossy as a depiction standard for 'objects from the future'. The iPod now responds only to human touch and has the ability to isolate you from your environment for days solid, if you desire. At least your old Sony Discman would inevitably stop after 70 minutes on a CD. The form of an iPod is about personally condensing history and physicality into something invisible and extremely expansive. It has completely re-invented the way we interface with music and ultimately a huge form of creative expression. I also like that it is already dated. This is why I used the old 3rd generation iPods in the sculptures.

 

AC: The images in the John Titor series are photographs of an American landscape. How does this relate to his prophecies and your theme of a time capsule from the near future?

JB:  Well, I come from Middle America and I have a great affection for early American landscape painting. The story of John Titor is way too long and ridiculous to describe (go to johntitor.com), but he posts web board messages from the future with predictions about an American civil war in 2008 after the election--a rural vs. urban scenario. This is where the Titor images stem from, a frozen wasteland of debris from a once thriving economy set in the barren wilderness of Kentucky. These photos are certainly the most tangential of the exhibition, but I was fascinated by these prophecies from the future that utilized the technology of web boards, and outdated computer parts (read the John Titorstory). I sometimes feel like the vast landscape of our nation isn't contemplated as often as it could be in contemporary art.

 

AC:  You have also integrated issues connected with the war in Iraq, including a video of the hanging of Saddam Hussein. How do you expect the American viewer will react to these slightly more jarring references?

JB:  I expect that 70% of the viewers will watch a bit of the video loop (that plays on a Motorola RAZR phone) and not get what they are really watching. I have already showed it to some aware citizens, and it took them a while to realize what it was. This is good though. I can't have it hit them over the head. The video only contains the abstract black space of the footage after Saddam fell through the hole--the part not played on CNN, etc. You see him swing into and out of the blackness on his noose. The display format is quite disorienting, and I think that works in my favor. I'm really not concerned with their response to 'jarring' content. This is reality. It is factual. People's lives are taken daily for a variety of reasons across the world. What is jarring to me is the fact that one of the most iconic events in the late 20th and early 21st centuries was captured on a cell phone video and immediately disseminated to the world. It sounds grim but I was waiting with bated breath just before this event because I knew something like this would happen, and I was prepared to absorb it into my work.