Mark Tribe has solo exhibition "Rare Earth" at Momenta Art in Brooklyn, NY

May 05 - Jun 18 2012

Momenta Art
Brooklyn, NY

Opening Reception: May 05 2012

Momenta Art is pleased to present Rare Earth, a solo exhibition of works by Mark Tribe (2008 Visual Arts). Tribe uses video, performance and print media to examine the aesthetic dimensions of political action. His latest project explores the function of landscape as a symbolic setting for paramilitary combat in video games and in the training exercises of right-wing militia groups.

For this exhibition, Tribe has produced photographs of lush landscapes found in contemporary video games and a video of a militia training ground in Upstate New York. The photographic landscapes appear at first to be real, but careful examination reveals that they are actually computer generated simulations. Like the photographs, the video depicts a picturesque landscape. It is comprised of a single, static shot: the camera remains motionless, and only the subtlest of movements, such as a blade of grass swaying in the breeze, reveal that it is, in fact, a motion picture. The photographs and the video are at once seductive and destabilizing. As we begin to question the authenticity of these landscape representations and the reliability of our perceptions, the relationship between militia training and video game play—one real, the other a simulation—is also called into question.


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