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Fernando Orellana
September 26 @ 12:00 pm - October 26 @ 5:00 pm
Exhibition Related Events
Saturday, September 28th
4:00 – 6:00 PM
Artist’s Reception
The Courthouse Gallery
Wednesday, October 2nd
7:00 PM
Zoom Conversation with
Fernando Orellana
To register
please email
june@lakegeorgearts.org
by noon on Wednesday
Sunday, October 6th
1:00 – 4:00 PM
SUNDAY ARTS
Gallery Tour and
Art-Making for all ages
FREE OF CHARGE
Artist Statement
Corpo
We sleep as our republics dissolve, our climate collapses, our humanity is bought and sold by global pirates on autopilot. We sleep as our bodies lay dying, preferring the limitlessness and safety of fantasies rather than the reality of the growing inferno. Our inability to acknowledge or agree on a collective logic has ensnared us into a new Dark Age, which will likely lead to our extinction, or worse, mass obsolescence to simulacra. The human figures in the robotic installation Corpo and the mechanisms that prop them up serve as a metaphor for our collective denialism.
Each figure in the installation is in a state of deep sleep as they work, ride the subway, watch tv, or lounge on arm chairs. Unpredictably, they are put into states of chaotic and violent inertia by the machines they are literally attached to. To ensure the figures stay blissfully sleeping, an artificial intelligence continuously fills the installation space with a soothing generatively made soundscape, which acts as a surrogate mother, humming an endless lullaby. By this the installation Corpo reflects our global culture of looking the other way, even when our existence is so obviously in peril.
The film
in the electric tower,
that is the dominant
display.
Early in the year 2023, I had an extraordinarily vivid dream. In this dream, a sage, seated inside a large circular hole cut into a stage, urgently exclaimed to me, “The film in the electric tower, that is the dominant display!” The moment was so profound that I awoke suddenly, scrambling to find something to write with so I wouldn’t forget the message. Since that night, the sage’s words have resonated, leaving me bewildered yet intrigued as I struggle to understand their meaning.
In this exhibition, I invite viewers to contemplate their own “electric towers” and “films.” What dominant displays shape your perceptions? What crucial messages are waiting to be screened in your consciousness? Through this body of work, I aim to illuminate these questions and encourage a deeper understanding of the narratives that define our existence.
Gardens of Earthly Delights
“Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible.” – Javier Pascual Salcedo
Shame on us, the children of the future, for remaining in the dark on cannabis, a substance ingrained in human history since antiquity. Our comprehension, obstructed by our delight in distorting reality, political agendas and bureaucratic absurdities, remains tragically inadequate in discerning marijuana’s benefits or poisons. For over a century, “reefer madness” narratives have imprisoned culture and thwarted intellect, twisting our view on a subject that should be crystal clear, given our miraculous technologies. Shame on us!
Thanks to the courage of pioneering scholars and researchers, we have managed to harvest precious limited data on the effects of high-potency cannabis on the population. Yet, compared to the encyclopedias we have on other, often younger substances, what is known is laughable and mostly anecdotal. Until science is free to investigate cannabis without fear of academic, cultural or legal repercussions, attempting to create sober policy or regulations on this mysterious substance is as absurd as wondering if, and how, space bears can become intoxicated by marijuana.
Biography:
From robots that hold protests, extruders that birth populations and machines that are designed for the dead to operate, Fernando Orellana has collaborated with automation for over twenty years to create transmedia artwork. As a machine designer, a technologist and a user, Orellana has blurred the line between himself and the machine in the creative process. The imagery and narrative that Orellana explores spans a spectrum that includes giving agency to automata, embraces the generatively made, celebrates the wonder of absurdity and is most often driven by the universes of his subconscious mind.
He has exhibited at a variety of regional, national and international venues, most recently at the Toledo Museum of Art, the Speed Art Museum, the Spring Break Art Show and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. He received a Master of Fine Art from The Ohio State University, a Bachelor of Fine Art at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently an Associate Professor of Digital Art in the Visual Arts Department at Union College. He was born in El Salvador, San Salvador.
Courthouse Gallery
1 Lower Amherst Street
Lake George, NY 12845
518-668-2616
Hours: Wednesday – Friday: 12:00 – 5:00 PM Saturday: 12:00 – 4:00 PM
For exhibition information or to schedule a visit
outside of gallery hours please contact
June Waters, Director of Exhibitions june@lakegeorgearts.org 518-668-2616
Thank you to our exhibition sponsors!
