Ran
Slavin

[This is the description of the work, not the artist statement] Paradise Now (vol2) / (vol3) is a site-specific video and sound installation that can be adapted to other forms and spaces. With its strong and vibrant red and blue hues, it represents a ritual in a perplexing intangible realm, between expressions of mid-century landscape painting, science fiction in popular culture, and ancient theological narratives, providing an intermediation of ethereal and virtual states to the latter. Cynically entitled “Paradise Now” as a portamento between “Apocalypse Now” and current world events, it also sets in motion a wish within its title. After all, what we most crave is finding paradise on earth. The work was originally staged with two different screening medias, a holographic LED display, and a circular back screen projecting fluid and constantly-morphing landscapes, representing volatility, with far-from-recognizable ancient ink etchings in the midst of rapid change. Slavin based these images on scans of coffee stains lifted off his espresso machine, having formed random landscape patterns (also referencing psychic coffee readings), which were later rendered by AI software to produce sequences of fantasy motion data. Paradise Now (vol2) depicts a draped, flickering figure, reminiscent of a holographic shaman or the Virgin Mary from Christian iconography. The figure is named NoveryOne (Novery1), a compound of “no one” and “everyone”. It is an avatar of the artist in a meta-time-space, exploring a post-human and spiritual intersection in a perplexing space of wonder and the supernatural.