Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Exploited same loophole used by Richy Richs (January 29th)

Clifford D “Cliff” Schecter the 30 year old US political writer with a reputation as a pugnacious proponent of progressive politics and policies, has published an article reviewing the political satire of the Stephen Colbert SuperPAC. In the article Schecter writes “Political satire … has played an important role in shaping political thought throughout the ages… That is why what Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are doing with their “Super PAC“… a public service at this point in our country’s democratic experiment… running ads… through Colbert’s Super PAC, Americans For A Better Tomorrow-Tomorrow, using every device possible – short of playing flash-card memory games… to show how unbelievably absurd our whole system has become… They have exploited the very same loophole used by Richy Richs – such as the infamous clean-air hating Koch Brothers…  to give large and unregulated sums of money, or speech, to candidates… as Colbert himself said: “With your help – and with possibly the help of some outside group that I am not coordinating with – we can explore taking this country back.”

Inspired by Cliff Schecter http://ow.ly/8BPvR image source http://ow.ly/8BPBV

Tastes like that stuff you get at the dentist (October 12th)

Thom Yorke the lead vocal of the UK band Radiohead was introduced along with the band by Stephen Colbert to ‘The Colbert Report’ that was devoted almost entirely to the band. “Prepare yourselves, Radiohead. You’re about to meet Televisionface” , was how Colbert made the introduction to the hour-long special episode, stating “presented by Dr Pepper, except for Radiohead, who present themselves because they’re nobody’s corporate tool”. Yorke and the band seemed to be enjoying themselves during the show, and for the pioneers of “Serious Listening” they were actually laughing. Colbert chided the band for their anti-corporate stance yet sitting beneath a large Dr. Pepper sign. Yorke responded that the soda “tastes like that stuff you get at the dentist to swill your mouth out.” Colbert replied, “Well, Thom, It is a doctor”.

Inspired by Hadley Freeman http://ow.ly/6KMlp image source Comedy Central http://ow.ly/6KMrS

Political pungent, perpetual panic conflictanator (November 1st)

American cable television comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert held their ‘Rally to Restore Sanity’ at the Washington DC Mall which drew an enormous crowd stretching from the Congressional Capital buildings to the National Monument. Access to the event proved some-what difficult with people arriving hours late due to the stressed public transport and gridlocked surrounding streets. The rally although deemed as a non-political event was in essence a reaction to the earlier ultra conservative cable television figure Glenn Beck lead ‘Rally to restore honour’ that was seen as a mobilization of the extremist Tea Party movement in the lead up to the American mid-term elections.

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