Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

David Choe the 36 year old American painter, muralist, graffiti artist and graphic novelist of Korean descent, having achieved success with his “dirty style” figure paintings comprising raw, frenetic works which combine themes of desire, degradation, and exaltation; has been the subject of an article on The Daily Beast by Lizzie Crocker titled ‘Facebook Artist David Choe Launches New Gig With Porn Star Asa Akira’. Crocker states “A year after David Choe became the most surprising multimillionaire to emerge from Facebook’s IPO, the bad-boy graffiti artist is making the publicity rounds with a new pornographic podcast featuring porn star Asa Akira. …Tits, ass, and goblins. Bare-chested chicks straddling hellhounds. Perverse imagery has long permeated graffiti artist David Choe’s work, including the infamous murals he spray-painted at Facebook’s first headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. The company’s then president, Sean Parker, allegedly told Choe to “go crazy and draw as many giant ‘cocks’” on the walls as he wanted. Choe was paid for the job in Facebook stock, which was valued at $200 million when the social media behemoth went public last February. …A year later, Choe is opening up about his new gig with porn star Asa Akira: DVDASA … The first two episodes of DVDASA feature comedian Yoshi Obayashi as a special guest, though Choe hopes to lure actors, rap artists, and other “legitimate people” into the podcast studio… He claims he created the podcast as a forum to voice personal transgressions and divulge bizarre fetishes and fantasies. “When you talk about everything openly, it’s hell on your personal relationships,” he says. “It’s weird, because it feels good and yet it’s also really self-destructive. But [Asa and I] have already figured out that we’re self-destructive people anyway, so it’s like, fuck it.”

Inspired by Lizzie Crocker, The Daily Beast ow.ly/hYBSx Image source Facebook ow.ly/hYBS8

Kara Santos the Filipino writer and photographer published an article on IPS News titled ‘Filipino Netizens Reject Cybercrime Act’ claiming “A newly enacted cybercrime law in the Philippines has raised fears that not only online media but also ordinary netizens could be persecuted for exercising their freedom of expression”. Santos states “Media groups have expressed concern that the law poses a threat to press freedom and limits freedom of expression in the country. Bloggers and social media practitioners also point out that the new law allows the government to shut down websites without due process, and makes Internet users liable for simply clicking the ‘like’ button on Facebook or re-tweeting something on Twitter. …the law also broadens the coverage of libel as a content-related offense that can be committed by just about anybody using a computer. …Many Filipinos are disturbed by the fact that the man allegedly responsible for this last-minute change, which lumps online libel with cybersex and child pornography, is notorious for plagiarising blogs, and recently elicited a spate of criticism from active netizens. …investigative journalist and blogger Raissa Robles claims that Senator Vicente Sotto III pushed for the insertion into the law at the eleventh hour “Historically, in the Philippines, it is the rich and the powerful who use libel as a weapon to suppress criticisms about them. Before the Internet came along, it was easier for the rich and the powerful to control criticisms. All they needed to do was buy a stake in newspapers, TV and radio. Or sue them. Now they have realised that the Web is beyond their control.”

Inspired by IPS News ow.ly/emsMy image source Facebook ow.ly/emsGS

Nadia Jelassi the Tunisian artist facing a five year prison term on charges of disrupting public order, following her exhibition of controversial art works, has become the focus of a campaign by hundreds of artists throughout Tunisia and abroad according to Hend Hassassi in an article published on Tunisia Live. Hassassi states “When Jelassi was summoned by the investigative judge … she went through an anthropometric test. She recreated her experience by posting a picture of herself holding a ruler by her face on her Facebook account. A support campaign was then launched by other artists inspired by Jelassi’s depiction of the incident. Many Tunisian artists have condemned the lawsuit and consider it an attempt at limiting freedom of expression. …“We are all Nadia. It is unbelievable, we never thought that charges would be brought against an artist for being creative, that’s what we do we express ourselves, we do it through our art. I don’t even get what the crime she is being accused of[…] It is certainly a first. For this to happen after the so-called revolution, it is just shocking, … It is the state that raised the lawsuit, how outrageous is that, this is not a spontaneous accusation someone is pulling the strings, it is certainly political and artists are paying the price“ said Sana Tamzini, artist and director of Belvedere Contemporary Art gallery, praising the support campaign for its intelligence and symbolism.”

Inspired by Hend Hassassi ow.ly/dEj5r image source Facebook ow.ly/dEiRl

Questions the implied value of Facebook (February 15th)

Dean Baker the 53 year old US macroeconomist and author of a weekly online commentary on economic reporting, questions the implied value of Facebook in its latest IPO (initial public offering) and whether the business is really worth that much money. Baker states “Facebook is going public… that is likely to place the market value of the company in the range of $100 billion. This price would put Facebook among the corporate giants in terms of market value… Some simple back of the envelope calculations show that Facebook would have to gain an enormous share of advertising expenditures over the next 5 to 10 years in order to generate the sort of profits needed to justify this current price… there have been numerous cases of companies becoming market darlings which were most definitely not worth the price. The best example of a failed market darling is probably the internet giant AOL, which had a peak market value of over $220bn in 2000. The price tag for AOL today is $1.8bn.”

Inspired by http://ow.ly/8Zovw image source Facebook http://ow.ly/8ZoV4

Cameron Howard Winklevoss the 30 year old identical twin brother to Tyler, both Olympian rowers who sued and reached a settlement with the founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, for copying their company’s ConnectU intellectual idea and using the source code Zuckerberg had been hired to develop for them. Winklevoss agreed to a settlement valued at $65 million, but now argues he was duped in the settlement as to the number of shares he should have received and recommenced litigation to challenge the valuations. However the appeals court held that Winklevoss was a sophisticated negotiator aided by a team of lawyers, and that at some point the litigation must come to an end, with that point having now been reached.

Inspired by Amit Chowdhry ow.ly/4Dc9K image source Pulse2 ow.ly/4Dcaz

Snorre Serigstad Valen the 26 year old Norwegian pianist, singer and politician nominated the whistle-blower and anti-secrecy website Wikileaks for the 2011 Nobel peace prize, an award conferred by a committee of five people chosen by the Norwegian Parliament. This unique nomination of an internet website that utilizes social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to disseminate state secrets acknowledges the bringing about of immense change to the political landscape, as tyrannical regimes that have traditionally held power over conventional media sources are now unable to control the freedom of the internet. The Norwegian Nobel Committee accepts nominations from many sources including University professors and presidents, former committee members and advisors, former recipients of the award, and in Valen’s case members of national assemblies and governments.

Inspired by Wojciech Moskwa ow.ly/3Psf6 image source Wikipedia ow.ly/3Psdg

Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak the 72 year old President of the Arab Republic of Egypt who assumed the Presidency in 1981 following the assassination of President Anwar El-Sadat, himself surviving six assassination attempts, defended in a televised address his use of security forces to control thousands of Egyptian protestors who had gathered and battled lines of riot police. Mubarak claimed in the address that it was his job was to protect the nation from chaos, however the initially peaceful chanting of the protestors turned violent with the state closure of Facebook and Twitter. These closures were closely followed by the whole of the internet the mobile phone network, and finally the house arrest of Mohamed ElBaradei the opposition figurehead.

Inspired by Nic Robertson, Frederik Pleitgen, Salma Abdelaziz ow.ly/3MqrC image source Wikipedia ow.ly/3MqAf

The page does not display personal details (November 9th)

Queen Elizabeth II the British monarch has joined the social network Facebook with a page that allows users to view and receive feeds from her home page messages with news on the Royals and events from her diary.  No one is permitted to become the Queen’s facebook direct friend however and can only receive the informational feeds.  On the release of the page the number of people who clicked the like button to the site went viral with 130 thousand people on single day of the release.  The Facebook page complements the Queen’s other social network sites including Youtube, Flickr and Twitter.

Political Arts | Ian Bunn Visual Artist

My digital art work is essentially politics and art. It’s about iconic people, places and events of our day.  Recorded visually through daily compilations of manipulated digital images, posted online and disseminated via online media and social networks. The works are diaristic in nature that metaphorically record a spectator’s experience of the contemporary digital age.  The resulting work intentionally has a painterly aesthetic acknowledging my historical painting practice.

Adapting Pop Art’s notion of mass media imagery into a context of the contemporary digital age, the work draws on a myriad points of reference. Utilizing fractured images to provide an allusion to the digital noise pounding away daily into our sub consciousness.  The work is essentially popular culture arts, diverging from the traditional Pop Art notion of a pronounced repetition of a consumer icon, instead this work focuses on the deluge of contemporary digital content. The compilation of the fragmented imagery is vividly distractive, not unlike cable surfing or a jaunt through Times Square.

This digital photo manipulation art work is premised on the basis that Pop art in its beginnings, freeze-framed what consumers of popular culture experienced into iconic visual abstractions. With the advent of the techno age, visual information circulates in such quantities, so rapidly and exponentially, that to comprehend a fraction of it all becomes a kind of production process in itself.  Hence this work considers fragmented elements of Popular Culture through an artistic and conceptual exploration of specific people and events of the day.

www.ianbunn.com

In view of growing sacrilegious contents (May 23rd)

My work is about iconic people, places and events of our day.  Recorded visually through daily compilations of manipulated digital images, posted online and disseminated via online media and social networks. The works are diaristic in nature that metaphorically record a spectators experience of the contemporary digital age.  The resulting work intentionally has a painterly aesthetic acknowledging my historical painting practice.

Adapting Pop Arts notion of mass media imagery into a context of the contemporary digital age, the work draws on a myriad points of reference. Utilizing fractured images to provide an allusion to the digital noise pounding away daily into our sub consciousness.  The work diverges from the traditional Pop Art notion of a pronounced repetition of a consumer icon, instead this work focuses on the deluge of contemporary digital content. The compilation of the fragmented imagery is vividly distractive, not unlike cable surfing or a jaunt through Times Square.

The work is premised on the basis that Pop art in its beginnings, freeze-framed what consumers of popular culture experienced into iconic visual abstractions. With the advent of the techno age, visual information circulates in such quantities, so rapidly and exponentially, that to comprehend a fraction of it all becomes a kind of production process in itself.  Hence this work considers fragmented elements of Pop Culture through an artistic and conceptual exploration of specific people and events of the day.

The works are presented as individual pieces printed with Archival-Inks on 308g Cottonrag-paper, along with A3 sized bound monthly editions, and monthly looped video compilations.
www.ianbunn.com