Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Law of the markets which imposes austerity (December 20th)

Dominique Marie François René Galouzeau de Villepin the 58 year old French former Prime Minister and career diplomat regarded as a Jacques Chirac’s protégé, has announced his intention to run in the 2012 French presidential election. de Villepin will be up against the current President Nicolas Sarkozy, a bitter rival following his acquittal by a French appeals court where de Villepin had been accused of smearing Sarkozy. In making his announcement de Villepin expressed his concern with “France humiliated by the law of the markets which imposes more and austerity … I have confidence in the ability of the French people to discern what is in the public interest and to what point, more than ever, national unity is required of us all. I believe one needs more courage than that.” de Villepin is a former member of Sarkozy’s UMP party, resigning to publish his own political manifesto.

Inspired by France24 http://ow.ly/82L3O image source Marie-Lan Nguyen http://ow.ly/82KXw

Marine Le Pen the 42 year old French politician and president of the Front National (FN) party, the youngest daughter of the renowned Jean-Marie Le Pen founder of the FN, and likely 2012 French presidential candidate has come out on top of several polls indicating that she would beat the incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy if an election was to be held now. Le Pen has taken over her retired father’s role as the European face of bigotry and emblem of right wing extremism. Le Pen maximizes the simplicity of populist politics to garner support for her resurging party’s popularity within the electorate. Anti immigration and vilification of the Muslim community are central policy planks of her party’s platform, utilizing headline grabbing Nazi occupation rhetoric when describing Muslim cultural aspects.

Inspired by Russell Shorto http://ow.ly/5wLAT image source National Front http://ow.ly/5wLHI

People think it would be a mistake to fire him (November 14th)

Francois Fillon the 56 year old popular French Prime Minister submitted his resignation and that of his government to President Nicolas Sarkozy, a calculated move that enables the reshuffling of the governments ministries in the lead up to the Presidential elections in approximately 18 months time. Fillon is expected to be reappointed with a significantly reduced number of ministries presenting a smaller tight knit government to electors, particularly after the trauma of the recent Pension age legislation passed by the parliament. Fillon is a career politician having held many domestic ministerial positions since 1993 under centre right governments.

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.

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