Still from Mothership

source: jonmonaghan

Working with similar techniques used in commercial CGI animation and special effects, Mothership is an imaginative and haunting film. Funny and colorful, almost superficial, but at the same time based on a deep analysis of the history of art, politics, and social dynamics with an emphasis on wealth and power structures. Monaghan reverses the meaning and function of objects and characters, embezzling not only the elements and protagonists of pop culture, advertising, consumerism, and video games, but also their subconscious strategies that elicit a particular response in us. The immediate familiarity granted by his imagery hacked from our cultural landscape mediates the surreal foreignness of his aesthetic, creating a nightmarish edge in which we remain trapped in an endless loop of seductive but ultimately vacuous simulation where meanings don’t quite materialize.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: artandseeknet

Jonathan Monaghan (born 1986, New York) is an interdisciplinary artist working with computer animation and 3D printing to examine popular culture and Western history. He has presented his work in venues such as the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C., the BFI Southbank in London, the Anthology Film Archives in New York and the Moving Image Art Fair in London.