The Curator Mag | Brandon Tay’s Facade: Digitalised Reflections and the Urban Anthropomorphic

Anandita Thakur, The Curator Mag, Febbraio 8, 2019

"For Singaporean artist Brandon Tay, the age of new media comes replete with its own newer inversions of digital space, spatialization, and perspective. Tay’s installation, FACADE, was part of F(r)iction@KONA, one of Indian art non-profit St+art India’s recent exhibitions on new media, and installation art. The exhibition also featured the work of artists such as Marc Lee, Martha Cooper and Akshat Nauriyal.

 

Tay’s installation is a meeting of the anthropomorphic with the interactive and the digitalized. Some would say, in the present state of affairs, the former implies the latter. The set-up features a screen reflecting back the viewer, who comes face to face with a creature bipedal but decidedly not human- with black fur covering a body crowned by a square of effervescent pink. While you stand before the installation, the creature, through a series of body sensors and object motion technology, mirrors your movements. Upon immediately entering the room, one encounters immediate darkness and the surprise of this creature mirroring movement. A number of other elements establish the frame as well, such as two hooded neon figures, who rest in the background. On the side we see another reflective surface, dancing enticingly: it is a smartphone."