Menu

Jonathan Monaghan

Escape Pod

Bitforms, New York

Loading video, please wait
Loading video, please wait
  • 00:00
Artist
Jonathan Monaghan
Title
Escape Pod
Year
2015
Duration
20 min
Format & Technical

Single channel, HD video, Colour, Sound, Animated Film

Escape Pod is based on hunting mythologies of the Greek and Nordic traditions. It captures the journey of a golden stag that roams modernist spaces of authoritarian confrontation and material excess. Lavish bedrooms, airport checkpoints, and a luxury riot gear boutique are encountered, as the scenery unfolds from the perspective of a floating viewpoint that is framed as a continuous shot. In a climactic moment, the golden fawn is birthed out of a BoConcept sofa, only to be carried away, into a heavenly Duty Free shop in the clouds. Seamlessly looped in a twenty-minute cycle, Escape Pod suggests an apocalyptic decadent future – one that is militarized, totalitarian and permeated by extravagance. It is a representation of laboured pursuits, particularly of the otherworldly or unobtainable.

Stills

Still
Still
Still