Joseph Farbrook V. 2
- Editor at Titan Contemporary Publishing
- Jan 22
- 3 min read
Joseph Farbrook is an installation, analogue digital, and video artist who has exhibited extensively across the United States and internationally in Europe, South America, the Middle East, and Asia. Recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition at the University of Texas Arlington and collective shows at Axiom Contemporary in Phoenix, Polygon Palm in Vancouver, PH21 Gallery in Barcelona, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, and Gallery 4% in San Francisco. Joseph has been published by The Boston Globe, The New Mexican, and Worcester Magazine.
Whether the fine mechanical precisional motions of live 3-D printing, the insertion of small screens and projections inside installations, or the streaming pixelization of video, there remains a digital component to all of the works byJoseph Farbrook. The art is conceptually complex and ranges in approach from conveying the purpose of contemporary individual and collective identity, converging geopolitical symbolism to the expressing the nihilism of alternate digital realities. From planting artificial Crops in soil with a mechanized 3-D printing apparatus to ominous, disturbing landscapes containing totems of facial features constructed with digital collage and renderings, the impactful cynicism of configurated realms within pixelized planes which we encounter constantly endure through personal electronic devices.
In video, Joseph Farbrook directs the viewer towards understanding group perceptions, value systems, infiltration, alternating environments, and questioning behavioral normality in works such as Collective Consciousness and Guerilla Dancer. While Joseph’s installations are based on direct conceptual directions, his video work reveals ambiguous narratives of nameless characters and remote environments enduring a revelation on changing dynamics, such as the alteration of time, space, awareness, and collective values. These value systems and altering places are explored in the forms of blending constellations to desolate zones and a dancer invading spaces inappropriate for her dancing and frolicing. In the installations, video becomes a crucial component in Joseph Farbook’s methodology in the form of projections and screens inserted inside sculptural components, such as a replica of Michelangelo’s David in the form of an eye withing a book-like construct projecting video. Other examples include Youtube videos and other visual information being projected within sculpted elements or from a mirror, behaving as a hallucinogenic understanding of rapidly processed symbols of collective identity in the form of illuminated, shaped light.
Observatory (pictured above) is a glass installation of a human head projecting a video from within. Through the glass, the viewer can peer inside the machinations of the human mind, behaving as a rapid display of visual information. The piece has indirect cyborg implications and suggests humans are akin to living computers which absorb and reflect data. Through art, Joseph Farbrook interprets the observation and purpose of being human.
With a complex, conceptually investigative portfolio, the works of Joseph Farbrook illuminate the collective and individual enigmas which defines contemporary identity. His use of video and digitized processes integrating with various physical materials, environments, and several artistic disciplines allow the audience to interpret how technology defines and influence not just art, but our very psychological impulses, perceptions, behavior, and avenues of learning. In the information age, Joseph Farbrook uses his art to elevate planes of consciousness but also mystifies and confuses the audience to chase after enigmatic philosophical principles, such as humanity as invasive species on environments and upon themselves. These cynical and dark interpretations leaves works which are anti-commercial and confrontational, leaving impressions far beyond their immediate impressions through the metaphorical lens of nihilistic narrative projections and technological suspicion.
