Visual Arts Past Faculty
Rindon Johnson
Photo by Rindon Johnson
About
Rindon Johnson (b. 1990, San Francisco, United States) is an artist and writer. His most recent virtual reality film, Meat Growers: A Love Story, was commissioned by Rhizome and Tentacular. In 2021, Johnson will open two pendant solo exhibitions; first in winter at SculptureCenter, New York, and later in autumn at Chisenhale, London. He is the author of Nobody Sleeps Better Than White People (Inpatient, 2016); the VR book, Meet in the Corner (Publishing-House.Me, 2017); Shade the King (Capricious, 2017) and forthcoming, The Law of Large Numbers: Black Sonic Abyss (Chisenhale, Inpatient, SculptureCenter 2021). Johnson was recently shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize. He is an Associate Fellow at the Universität der Künste Berlin; he studies VR.
Courses
THE DOG IS THE BROTHER OF THE FOX
Recent film for PCAI Online Exhibition, “The Dog is the Brother of the Fox.”
PORTFOLIO
Meat Growers: A Love Story (2019). Virtual Reality Work, 13:42, 4096 x 2160 pixels. Made Possible by Rhizome and Tentacular. Animation: Pariah Interactive. Image Courtesy the Artist Following Donna Haraway’s cry, “it matters what worlds world worlds,” my contributions to VR are speculative fictions which hope to use science fiction and future world making as a way to expand human relation. Parts of my project considers what kind of world VR can create for us, this work considers a world without borders or hunger. Meat Growers is a tale of ethics and longing. Two coworkers / lovers in a meat growing plant find themselves caught in a quarrel as the hunger saving Meat Trees make their sentience known. Do they continue to exploit the trees?
Diana Said: / If you stop me / from cutting / your hair, / there is a sense / in which / you are / interfering. / * / But, since you are entitled / to determine / whether I cut your hair / or not, you do not / wrong me. / * / I make your trip to the store a waste. / * / I buy the last quart of milk / before you / get there. (2019). Virtual Reality Work, 7:15, 4096 x 2160 pixels. Animation: Pariah Interactive Photo: Alwin Lay at The Julia Stoschek Collection, Dusseldorf A male narrator describes the power of the bird’s eye view with it we lose and gain a particular type of scale. Diana Said, considers this scale shift through the cow. The cow and what we have done to cows enmass is a symptom and cause of the spiral we’ve constructed for ourselves based on a desire many of us did not know that we had, or had no say in the perpetuation of.
I First You (11/11). Single Channel HD Animated Video, 5:29. Score by Milo McBride. Image Courtesy the Artist
NEWS + LINKS
Watch Rin’s Artist Talk with Eduardo Williams and Lisa Long @ Julia Stoschek Collection, Dusseldorf, March 2019