Trill Death Cult
Wednesday 28th August 2024
Trill Death Cult
28 August - 13 September 2024 | Vancouver Arts Centre
James BL Hollands
Australia, 59 mins 59 seconds, video and sound / 12 x 16 alumalux prints / strobes
Trill Death Cult is an hour long video installation with sound, containing over 50,000 non-AI images of skulls made by the artist, alongside 10 stills from the film, displayed with strobes. In spite of its dark imagery, Trill Death Cult is a hallucinogenic holy psychedelic video epic providing feelings of immanence, ecstasy and joy. Trill Death Cult is based on Buddhist ideas of The Third Bardo. The Lord of Death holds up a mirror of karma to you, and thousands of demons approach and inflict torments upon your soul - one potentially attains liberation by enduring this and recognising the voidness in all things, and that this is all a projection of your mind.
Trill Death Cult is a transcendental work, comprising of video, prints, sound and light, creating a ossuaric temple within the gallery. The video is created and animated in a tradition of artists from Len Lye to John Whitney, and uses techniques influenced by the work of Ryoji Ikeda and Paul Sharits.
James Hollands is an artist who has lived in rural WA for the past 10 years. He graduated with a City and Guilds in Stonemasonry and Sculpture in 1995 and did a Masters in Computer Art at Thames Valley University, London in 2008. He has held over 17 solo installations and been exhibited globally including the Tate Modern and Whitechapel, London and biennials in Liverpool and Prague. He was the curator of “London’s Home of the Avant-Garde”, The Horse Hospital, for 7 years. He has been a practicing artist in video, sound, and text for nearly 30 years and his work can be found in collections such as St Martins British Artists Film and Video Study Collection, London; BFI Archives, London; Clark, Montreal and Divus, Prague. In WA, he was the manager of the Cannery Arts Centre in Esperance and has exhibited in the Pickle After Dark and Strange festivals in Perth to audiences of over 10,000 people.
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