Cathode Dream: Wanjun Carpenter

The Multi-Arts Pavilion, mima (MAP mima) launched its Artist in Residence program with local mixed media artist Wanjun Carpenter in February 2022.

In the inaugural show, Carpenter utilised the unique MAP mima canvas by blending analogue and digital technology. Using handy cams, analogue TVs and other obsolete technology, Carpenter creates a glitchy and edgy work that samples the texture and patterns of 80s and 90s video technology, fed back through the state-of-the-art MAP mima projection system.

The result is a landscape of texture and pattern, with surprisingly organic forms emerging within the glitching visuals. Cathode Dream shows us some of what is lost in a world of High Definition, a dream scape of unexpected imagery, where technology break downs take us into an alternative world.

Wanjun Carpenter: Cathode Dream - The Cube

Cathode Dream feels like diving back into a VHS tape player, dragging you back to a time when video couldn’t be endlessly replicated, and every copy came at a loss. That loss becomes an opportunity in Carpenter’s installation, a work in progress piece that will evolve and change across the month-long residency. Carpenter will feed more content back through the TV and handy cams, each week diving a little deeper into this analogue unknown.

The work includes an installation piece demonstrating Carpenter’s process, with two television sets, a handy cam and digital SLR left in situ. The installation peels back the curtain on Carpenter’s process and allows the viewer to witness this unique process and enjoy the nostalgia of an old school TV.

Wanjun Carpenter: Cathode Dream - The Node

Images: Wanjun Carpenter Cathode Dream 2022. Courtesy MAP mima.

About the artist

Wanjun Carpenter is a mixed media artist and musician from Newcastle, NSW.

Working across various creative fields and contexts. his artistic practice centres around the exploration of his own indigenous identity and the construction, misrepresentations, questions and tensions inherent in that identity.