iMIT List Visual Arts CenterKendall Square, Cambridge
List Projects 35: Pap Souleye Fall
In Pap Souleye Fall's practice, technological error is a space of refuge one can slip into, concealed from larger systems of control.
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A green arm pokes out of tattered green fabric climbing one wall. It's cut from a chroma-key suit Pap Souleye Fall wears to perform as DEAD PIXEL, and ArtReview's critic saw an avatar caught between digital and physical.
DEAD PIXEL is Fall's comic-book hero, named for the dark dot a broken screen leaves behind and hunted by THE DATA COLLECTOR, who wants his senses. Here the story fills one room: a rickety lattice of giant papier-mâché "matchsticks" holding e-waste from MIT's campus and a gargantuan peanut. The press release says the structure blends into the wall mural from one angle, like a glitch; you walk around it and a glowing chamber opens up. In Kendall Square, of all neighborhoods, the hero's whole plan is hiding his nose from a data collector.
ArtReview's Gee Wesley found "wit and whimsy" with a dark point about the waste behind digital life. It's Fall's first solo museum show, one installation in the Bakalar Gallery, free, and open until 7pm Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Look for
The green arm in the wall
Look for parts of DEAD PIXEL's performance suit stitched into a patchwork of tattered green fabric running up a wall, with a green arm poking out of the seams.
The hinged wooden books
Dozens of illustrated wooden blocks hinge open onto pixelated drawings, some carrying lines like "EMPIRE RISE; EMPIRE FALL" and "INVISIBLE TO WHOM".
The scratched screens
Monitors recovered from e-waste sites carry pixel-art drawings scratched into them: Senegal's palm trees, the peanut, and DEAD PIXEL with limbs outstretched.
The camouflage Santa
An inflatable Santa in military camouflage has been repapered in blue, lime and forest-green swatches, and a dollhouse on top of the structure is wrapped in spandex.
The cowrie figure-eight
Below the green suit, cowrie shells form a small figure-eight that reads as both a peanut and an infinity sign.
Good for
- An Hour Or Less
- Cheap Culture
- Evening Visits
- Locals Who've Seen It All
Skip if
You want paintings on walls: it's one room-size installation of scaffolding, e-waste and papier-mâché.
Also at MIT List Visual Arts Center
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Image credits
7
- List Projects 35: Pap Souleye FallMel Taing / MIT List Visual Arts Center
- Freezing Time: Edgerton and the Beauty of the Machine AgeCourtesy of MIT Museum
- MIT List Visual Arts Centerajay_suresh / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
- MIT MuseumS5A-0043 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
- Gibson House MuseumDaderot / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
- Museum of Science, BostonDaderot, via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
- Massachusetts Historical Societyajay_suresh, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0