Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Mohammed Matter ‘Abu Yazan’ the Palestinian political activist, writer and a member of Gaza Youth Breaks out movement, writes “My story is marked by violence, persecution, arrests, abuse and resistance.” Matter has published an article on Aljazeera stating “It has been almost two years now since we wrote our manifesto. We called it a manifesto, but in reality, I’m not sure what it was. Was it a manifesto, or was it a cry for help? Perhaps, an accusation, or even perhaps a demand to the world and to ourselves; a demand for change from the outside and from within. It was before the uprisings began around us, and they have been roaring the last two years in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Bahrain. But we had felt like shouting in the dark, and while this raging had brought light into the darkness of the dictatorships around us, the night around us has not thinned even a bit. No, if anything, it has only become darker. … We struggle every day against our obstacles and for our dreams, and you can see that in all the amazing creativity coming out of Gaza, in our art, poems, writing, videos and songs, you can hear it and meet us in the talks we give all over the world. Yes, we wrote a manifesto, and maybe that was just the bright and loud outcry of the beginning of a journey, whose path is hard and tiring, thorny and also often very quiet and dark. But it is always there. So two years later, we say: We will be free. We will live. We will have peace. And we are always out there, fighting our daily struggle, full of the resistance we inherited from a long struggle for Palestine. We live and write and say and sing silent or loud manifestos every day. Just listen to us.”

Inspired by Aljazeera ow.ly/eUhfO image source Facebook ow.ly/eUhc9

Mustafa Abdul Jalil the 58 year old former Minister of Justice under the Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi regime and Chairman of the National Transitional Council based in Benghazi, which controls much of the country in opposition to Gaddafi in Tripoli, has called for the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya. The National Transitional Council wrote in a letter to the U.N. General Assembly for the transitional council to be recognized as “the sole representative of all Libya”. As this is the most formal request to date to the international community to provide assistance, the request carries significant weight. Jalil’s request is for immediate action on a no-fly zone to minimize further blood-shed of innocent citizens and those assisting to over throw the Gaddafi regime.

Inspired by CNN’s Ben Wedeman, Whitney Hurst, Nic Robertson, Chris Lawrence, Arwa Damon, Salma Abdelaziz, Jomana Karadsheh and Caroline Faraj ow.ly/4eJx0 image source Tara Todras-Whitehill of AP ow.ly/4fxuq

Very dangerous to express perceived problems (December 9th)

Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi the 68 year old de facto leader of Libya since the 1969 coup caused a nuclear scare when he delayed the return of radioactive material to Russia for a month following a diplomatic tantrum.  Seven casks with 5.2 kilograms of highly enriched uranium was left on the tarmac at the Tajoura nuclear facility with only a single guard left to secure the weapons grade material. The Russian transport plane was forced to leave without the material after Gaddafi took offence during a visit to the UN in NYC where he felt humiliated when prohibited from pitching his signature Bedouin tent. Hillary Clinton resolved the crisis after reassuring Gaddafi of the USA’s commitment to Libya.

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

Dutch boy a sole survivor (May 13th)

This work is about iconic people, places and events of our day.  Recorded visually through daily compilations of manipulated digital images, the work is 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 the artists 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 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.

www.ianbunn.com