David B. Jang, a Los Angeles-based sculptor, is known for inventive kinetic installations which employ hacked consumer electronics and subverted household appliances. By using electro-mechanical techniques to create interactive art forms, Jang is propelled by the notion of redirecting the short life of cast-off mechanical reproductions into genuine objects of supreme beauty. They, in turn, become approachable, lovely and infinite.
The exhibition “David Jang: Systems of Production” is on view Feb. 22 through April 26 at the W. Keith & Janet Kellogg University Art Gallery (Building 35A). A campus preview will be held on Feb. 22 from 4 to 6 p.m. with refreshments. Jang will participate in a Q&A at 4:30 p.m. The opening reception will be held Feb. 24, from 3 to 6 p.m. For more information, visit www.Facebook.com/KelloggArtGallery.
Jang’s work harnesses energy. But because energy and matter cannot be destroyed, only transformed, his work maintains a constant state of motion: transforming themselves and transferring energy over time.
6 amps, 120 x 344 x 48” (dimensions variable). Image use courtesy of the artist.
The task of his work is to produce line and mass in various states –a process in which the work is never realized in its final form– but just like our body, is continuously progressing. ‘Meaning’ is possible by creating order against the law of entropy.
This constant state of ‘meaning creation” is connected to the human compulsion to produce forms which are connected to the technological system of production that we have set into motion. The behavior of technological systems of production are random and opportunistic, just like the behavior of humans.
Jang is constantly seeking self-organizing systems known as autocatakinetics. He finds a strange reassurance in a “rich harmonic practice that addresses the conditions that define our daily existence” by creating a formal aesthetic out of the utilitarian, mass-produced objects. By duplicating, multiplying and unifying the diversity of human activity, represented by consumer materials and artifacts, he hopes to emulate the experience of contemporary human urban life.
If consumer materials are becoming the new landscape and their remnants permanent, then Jang desires to make them approachable, lovely and infinite, instead of heavy-handed, discarded and ugly.
The W. Keith and Janet Kellogg University Art Gallery (north end of Building 35A) is open Mondays and Tuesdays from 4 to 8 p.m. and Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. For more information, visit www.facebook.com/kelloggartgallery, email artgalleries@cpp.edu or call (909) 869-4302.