#HTE

Studio Swine Plays with Plasma to Capture the Sublime at A/D/O

Old warehouses glancing towards the East River have shifted into artist lofts, cafes and installation studios. Outside these warehouses, surprisingly clean and empty streets vibrate for blocks with the invisible creativity happening behind closed doors. One of these spaces, A/D/O by MINI, recently unveiled the six-month culmination of Studio Swine’s residency, an exhibition that investigates the unseen: Wave. Particle. Duplex.

Studio Swine (Super Wide Interdisciplinary New Explorers) is made up of two statuesque faces, Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves. However, the subjects of their work aren’t as tangible.

In 2017, they housed an old cinema in Milan with fragile, mist-filled blossoms; in 2018, they praised cyanobacteria–the 3 billion year old friends we have to thank for oxygenic photosynthesis (we breath because they exist). Here, they’ve given us an installation with two new mediums of work they’ve named Dawn Particles and Fog Paintings. Heavy research and experimentation with materials have led them repeatedly to form relationships with ephemeral, intangible, invisible or infinitesimal things. Wave. Particle. Duplex. marks Studio Swine’s first exploration with plasma.

All New York creatives know the pains it takes to reach the inaccessible G train that leads to Greenpoint. Despite this, A/D/O’s co-working space (starting at $375/month) is consistently packed with people willing to make the trek to work there every day. It could be the water, or the café attached to the building, or the access to equipment, or maybe its proximity to installations like this. Maybe a frequency of focus, spawned by magnetized plasma, is giving these kids energies we can’t see. Or do they all just live in quiet, clean Greenpoint?

Inside A/D/O, Studio Swine’s Fog Paintings swirl grey atmospheres inside backlit vitrines. They diffuse colored light and incase silhouettes that float about in response to the colors. They look like glass windows to a spirit world. Studio Swine says they’re homages to the Sublime.

Dawn Particles lack their excitement in photos. On video, red panels light up with mesmerizing movements. But in person–striking hand-blown glass–the magnetized plasmas backed by a series of shifting currents seem to shriek a few sharply-sung odes at the viewer about the nature of unseen particles: “We’re loud. We’re here. We’re always shifting. We affect you. How do you ignore us?”

Inspired by New York City’s shifting element–Studio Swine’s installation will be on display at A/D/O in Greenpoint, Brooklyn until February 10, 2019. Their Fog Paintings and Dawn Particles may or may not remind you of the Sublime landscapes you’ve seen or felt or heard in your life, but at the very least, viewers are invited to acknowledge those unseen, often-forgotten energies that are responsible for everything we experience.

https://www.core77.com/posts/83060/Studio-Swine-Plays-with-Plasma-to-Capture-the-Sublime-at-ADO