“I'm handed a flyer for Zipcar. A Strawberry Nutrigrain cereal bar is taped on, obscuring the red Ford Focus below — the car is a computer rendering. I find it important to approach photography as it exists in our society and we have reached a point where one must work with 3D rendering to exist within the space of contemporary imaging."
For his Test Site project, Software Update/System Build, Sol Hashemi courts the methods and materials of the photographic process to create work that explores current trends in imaging. This two-part presentation reveals the impact of these trends on the artist's photographic and sculptural practice and draws heavily from the technological vernacular associated with computing and modding cultures to explore themes relating to nature, commerce, and industry.
Beginning September 7 Hashemi made alterations — or Software Updates — to his recent works. Taking a cue from tech industry practices, the artist has adopted the term Software Update to address the ways in which companies constantly refine their products. This mode of production elaborates on themes explored in an earlier exhibition at Seattle's James Harris Gallery, Serving Suggestions, in which the artist offered alternate display options for a group of works on view, questioning the notion of the finished art object as a fixed entity. In the artist's mind, Software Updates do not suggest a static method of display by rather address the potential for change from within the system of the work.
The System Build portion of this presentation borrows from computer, internet, and hackerspace culture and started the week of October 15, when the artist began construction of a custom modded personal computer designed to power a 3D laser scanner used to create new work. System Build extends the notion of “potential" systems introduced in the first portion of this presentation.
Sol Hashemi was born in 1987 in Vancouver, Washington. He received his BFA from the University of Washington where he received a Mary Gates Research Scholarship and the Matt J. Jarvis Travel Award for Photography. He currently lives and works in Seattle and New York.