Rotting Monstera

Decay is the destruction of an organism due to the growth of microorganisms. But the decay that actually occurs is replaced in this work by fictional, manufactured symbols. I use industrialised materials and digital scans as a means of simulacra and simulation, expressing the shift in context through the process of simulated decay and the final form of decay, revealing this produced nature hidden under industrialisation.

Baudrillard writes in the book Simulacra and Simulation that Disney-it is a play of illusions and imagination, fictional fairy tales become a kind of anthropomorphic image that immerses everyone in the surreal world that has been created: Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation. I find that IKEA is also a fictional symbolic system that has been created to immerse us in such spaces. Alienated by the system of consumption and industrial production, the Monstera is removed from the context of nature. Nature is seen as a fictional symbol in such a context. And also it is a produced nature.

[Scanning a leaf 50 times]

I use industrialised materials and digital scans as a means of simulacra and simulation, expressing the shift in context through the process of simulated decay and the final form of decay

Deconstructing the materiality of the natural object itself, reconstructing the originally soft leaves into thick, hard metal. However, there is a huge conflict between natural decay and simulation in terms of materiality and temporality. This material conflict is a new way to create narratives and speculate about another relationship of possibilities.

©JIACHEN SHEN

2020-2024