For the autumn months of September and October, TaiR is welcoming a Canadian sculptor and media artist Denton Fredrickson. For the Tartu Residency, Denton is interested in addressing the theme of Building Bridges in three ways: through process and materials, connections across traditional and new technologies, and being open to the dynamics of collaboration.
The artist proposes to combine collage, sculpture, kinematics, interactive electronics, video projection mapping, and acoustic sound object design. It is important for the work to include a material presence, especially in relation to technologies that often fail to reveal their own infrastructures. He attends to create a bridge that connects the viewer to both the work and to the life-cycles of the materials around them.
Denton will work with the following source material: a 1979 physics of sound demonstration video, time-life home repair and improvement books, images of historical paintings and relief sculptures that make use of purposeful distortion, the history of sound foley design, and examples of human-machine interfaces from the 19th century to present. The incredible institutions and museums particular to the Tartu region will also be central to his research.
Collaboration also has an important part for Denton:
“If the opportunity presents itself through my time as Artist-in-Residence, I am open to exploring such methodologies in addition to, or in conjunction with, my individual practice. I believe the dynamics of collaboration lead to some of the most sincere forms of bridge building.”
Denton’s earlier artwork: https://dentonfredrickson.ca/