ART CITIES:Los Angeles-Hugh Scott Douglas
The multi-disciplinary practice of Hugh Scott-Douglas situates itself at the confluence of a number of critical, socio-political, economic and aesthetic observations and investigations. Interrogating tensions between analogue and digital modes of production, he makes use of a wide range of techniques and media, from laser cutting, inkjet printing and photography, to numerical data and satellite mapping software.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Blum & Poe Gallery Archive
In “฿o₫៛€$”, his solo exhibition at Blum & Poe in Los Angeles, Hugh Scott-Douglas presents printed paintings alongside steel sculptures and digital video. Scott-Douglas’ work is concerned with systems of value, trade routes and the circulation of currency and commercial goods, exploring and enacting methods of migration, translation and transaction. Scott-Douglas’ latest body of work, “Trade Winds”, reflects on his studio environment – a former naval shipyard in Brooklyn, NY. Using FleetMon, an AIS satellite mapping program, the artist traces various shipping routes across the globe, creating seemingly abstract works that are in fact immersed in empirical environmental conditions, reinterpreting landscape painting for a globalised audience. These captures are manipulated, both materially and chromatically, and then printed digitally in a manner that echoes the analog process of screen-printing. In an adjacent gallery, the artist presents a new series of sculptures that continue his investigation into capital’s endeavor. Employing CargoLoad (a program used to reduce shipping and transport costs through intelligent loading and optimal space utilization), the artist measured his own body to create a 42-part manifest representative of and proportionate to his body parts. The manifest is loaded into the program at various scales and the software generates both an image and a protocol, which are in turn used to fabricate the “anatomical” sculpture; all constituent parts are present, but capital’s desire for friction-free networks yield forms that no longer represent a human body. In a nearby gallery, Scott-Douglas presents a digital video projection of ghost jellyfish. As the jellyfish float (as they often do in the shipping lanes of ocean container ships), LED lamps pump light through pink lighting gels, coloring the otherwise clear bodies of the creatures as they drift against an illuminated blue background. Scott-Douglas subjects the footage of the jellyfish to a feedback loop he has created (the video played on a monitor, and filmed again) generating a wholly contained ghost image of the network that is facilitating the production of the video.
Info: Blum & Poe, 2727 S. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, Duration: 6/1-3/3/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.blumandpoe.com
