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Scopodrome, Installation View, Karen Tang , forground: Viewfinder, 2010
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Karen Tang Starburst, acrylic on wood, epoxy resin, 2010
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Installation View, Karen Tang Scopodrome, 2010
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Installation View, Karen Tang Scopodrome, 2010
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Karen Tang
Scopodrome 2010
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Scopodrome is the title of Karen Tang's latest installation with sculptures, sound and paintings evokes a parallel planetary zone where spaceship carcasses and curious sci-fi workstations are assembled in a dystopian command centre.
Inspired by the seminal Kubrick film Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) Tang's sculptural practice ventures into the territory of missile wars and sci-fi exploration. The installation around the sound sculpture The Antagonistic Snark consists of a metallic skin-like surface that engulfs the gallery. The organic mass of the sculpture blends into the background, but responds to movement. Any passer-by is detected and a reactive sound emanates through the space, which also contains an abstracted humanoid workstation. A telephone armrest and a disembodied light source are balanced on a disc-like shape, resembling the cut off torso of a man/ creature. The colours are subdued, reflective like a darkened sun. A second room reveals white constructions, corroded modernist formalism in the sculpture Viewfinder and irregularly shaped paintings with stark black and white graphic reductions of architectonic shapes. On closer inspection the shapes reveal themselves to be mechanical constructions, spaceships, glide bombers, binoculars, art deco designs.
Channelling sci-fi mythology from a number of sources including Ridley Scott's Alien films and the satire of Dr Strangelove , the artist succeeds at negotiating the fraught morality of warfare and our detached engagement with it. Sci-fi references such as the 1950's Dan Dare comics become the comfort zone where the annihilation of the human race is a remote possibility, whilst scopodrome is a technical term meaning the homing pursuit of guided missiles, described in extreme detail in actual military defence manuals. Tang's sculptural dramatisation translates the world of missile control and space craft into a stage environment which is as surreal as it could be real. In her recent work hybrid combinations of formal elements and different media lead to an altogether more dramatic and urgent language. For the viewer the work offers a sensory and interactive experience.
Tang continues her foray into organic abstraction that she began with her wiry, grout coated sculptures such as Siren Stephen and his Mirror . This sculpture was included in the exhibition l'apres-moderne , on account of her contemporary approach to a surreal visual language. The new works playfully reference the canon of 20 th century modernism, whilst recognizing the fact that it is a mute reference point and replaces the sharp geometry of formalism with fluid lines and a corrosive approach to form.
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