Cargo cult

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Throughout this week, we’ll be exploring Jake Couri’s oeuvre. His remarkable A Precarious Night at Plumb Point is currently on display on VRAL.

We strongly recommend watching this video in full screen while wearing headphones.

Jettison: to get rid of as superfluous or encumbering: omit or forgo as part of a plan or as the result of some other decision; to drop (cargo) to lighten a ship's load in time of distress; to drop from an aircraft or spacecraft in flight.

Jake Couri's single-channel video is a post-human meditation of the idea of descent and arrival. Based on the G-11 Cargo Parachute Assembly, developed primarily for platform airdrops - as of today, the only cargo parachute of this size which is readily available for military use with a maximum payload of 5000 lbs (2267.9 kg) - the piece follows a cluster of three canopies as they slowly and gracefully descend through the atmosphere, giving the viewer the unique perspective of the payload itself. As the canopies idle in the emptiness of space, the clouds slowly disintegrate and reappear in a mesmerizing simulation of the in-between state of descent…

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Matteo Bittanti

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When the grid leads to grinding, appendices without bodies produce immaterial labor.

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

〰️

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT 〰️

Throughout the course of this week, we'll be exploring Jake Couri’s oeuvre. His latest work, A Precarious Night at Plumb Point is currently on display on VRAL.

Couri’s A Stone's Throw (2022) delves into the rich historical underpinnings of art history, drawing inspiration from the late Sixteenth-century print series Nova Reperta, illustrating recent geographical discoveries and various scientific inventions of the time. Introduced during a period of intense cultural and technological ferment, Nova Reperta showcases the spirit of innovation and creative experimentation of the late Renaissance. Through its meticulous and highly detailed engravings, it captured the excitement and energy of this historical moment, providing a visual testament to the artists and inventors who pushed the boundaries of illustration as an art form.

Commissioned by Luigi Alamani between 1587 and 1589, the Nova Reperta series includes twenty prints numbered in the margins. The plates were designated by Jan Van Der Straet then engraved and published by Philippe Galle, his son Theodore and Jan Collaert in Antwerp. In addition to the engravings devoted to the discovery of the New World, Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, and Amerigo Vespucci to whom America owes its name, the rest of the collection - nineteen prints overall - illustrates man's progress in different areas of knowledge such as copper engraving, the compass, sugar refinery, distillation, the clockwork, and the oil painting technique.

Couri reinterpreted Nova Reperta through the lens of the digital medium - which he aligns with the aforementioned inventions - situating it within the framework of simulation games. The outcome, A Stone's Throw, is, in many ways, an update or, rather, a re-imagining, imbued with a melancholic and uncanny quality that invites the viewer to engage with the piece on a more philosophical level beyond its obvious visual appeal, the repetitive, mesmerizing patterns…

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Matteo Bittanti