THE HUMAN RACE, 2021
Alternating Current ArtSpace, Melbourne
The Human Race is a conceptual race-track sculpture depicting the burnout of the human species by route of fossil fuel consumption. The project takes the form of a miniature car race, that develops into a devastating car accident, ultimately representing the negative effects of our adverse reliance on destructive and exhaustible sources of energy.
The work is comprised of discarded car tires that have been cut to form closed circuits, loop-de-loops, and figure eights. On this racetrack rests two hundred distressed die-cast toy cars. Mostly all have met a fiery fate, leaving them with varying degrees of melting and charring. The cars are in a competing arrangement, driving to nowhere in particular as quickly as possible; racing towards their inevitable end.
The over-arching social commentary is reinforced by the symbol of the toy car; toys themselves act as instruments of propaganda. As mass produced components of culture, children’s toys are vehicles of dominant ideology. Playing with cars produces the desire to own one eventually, priming us to conform to the status quo of society. We are thus trained to invest in humanity’s inevitable destruction since childhood.
As the charred cars are poised mid-race and mid-crash, the fast and furious competition mirrors an allegorical depiction of our species; of our losing human race. The Human Race begs the questions - what are we even competing for, or driving towards, if not the collective preservation of our species and our planet? What is currently on the other end of the finishing line?
DOOMSDAY, 2020
Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne
Doomsday is a series of portraits that challenge the integrity of analogue photography. This project was shot on film which was contaminated prior to development using various liquids (including the artist’s own bodily fluids) in order to distort the final results.
The purpose of this experimental method is to question the fidelity of physical film as a recording medium by compromising its sensitive nature. The contaminants act as an intermediary between the conventional photographic process and the consequence of artistically guided chance.
The visual aftermath is varied; the images are rife with personality on the surface, and imbued with textures of decomposition. The film soak technique elicits a surreal quality, evoking a sense of foreboding.
Presented in this series are portraits from within an unprecedented time of upheaval, which witnessed shifts in the environment and in society. Judgement & end times. Blank faced, the human subjects pose with stoic dispositions; poised for interpretation within the blemished frame and open for the viewer’s emotional projections. Materialized through a series of gambles, Doomsday visualizes the alchemy of sabotage.
PRISM PORTRAIT, 2018
Beakerhead, Calgary
PRISM PORTRAIT is an interactive public project that captures selfies in a new dimension. This independently developed technology was created by Sebastian Jarmula and Jules LaPrairie and made its debut at Beakerhead festival. The idea of this project is to present and share faces moving in a 3-dimensional spectrum. PRISM PORTRAIT is an experience-based concept that takes an individual through a photo process. An individual enters the booth and has their portrait taken. Upon exiting the booth, their image is texted and/or emailed to them immediately. PRISM PORTRAIT, operating truthfully to its name, utilizes the human face as a prism. In the one instance of capture, light bouncing off of the face and entering into each camera lens “refracts” and offers a separation of color and portraiture. Separately, each frame provides a differing angle. Collectively, these frames offer an animation that mimics 3D. Every individual’s face becomes a medium to act upon, a catalyst for a motion portrait. PRISM PORTRAIT utilizes contemporary technology to finesse the art of selfie.
P.A.S.T.H.R.U., 2018
Arts Commons, Calgary
Fluctuating bands of color horizons. Images moving forward with no fixed point. An infinite travel through astral projections, launching spectators into an odyssey of abyss; a drift into abscissa. Viewers are invited inside of P.A.S.T.H.R.U. to be enclosed within a square of passing rays and chromatic mesas. Are observers entering a portal to a universe of deep space, or inside of a trance in abstract meditation? P.A.S.T.H.R.U. is a sensory installation removed of signifiers or identifiable forms; it contains only the movement of color and orbiting sound. The work lies on a plane of science fiction and memory, a course from no genesis to no terminus. At a continual plunge, participants are within a Perpetual Abscissa Surging Towards Horizon’s Removed Unfolding.
Installation photographs by Jaimie Stewart
LATE NIGHT THURSDAY with SELCI at CONTEMPORARY CALGARY, 2018
Contemporary Calgary, Calgary
Selci is a Calgary-based singer, producer and songwriter who creates her own beats in an ambient pop/electronica style with elements of R&B. She is a trained classical musician; having professionally studied opera, composition, electronics, and new music. This performance at Contemporary Calgary (the last event in the Stephen Avenue location) was a combination of musical performance by Selci and visuals by Sebastian Jarmula. The projections were a collaboration between the two artists, timed specifically to the music and created out of a journey into the human body and architectural space.
I AM SO EMULSIONAL, 2017
Arts Commons, Calgary
Images of summer take on a surreal edge that echo the texture of memory. I Am So Emulsional is a collection of photographs that distort preconceptions of proper aesthetics. This series was shot on film and contaminated prior to development by a variety of liquids (including the artist’s own bodily fluids) in an effort to alter the final results. The purpose of this experimental method was to skew familiar motifs of summer and manipulate recognizable physical attributes of the city of Calgary. How do our perceptions change when the visual content of activities such as a day at the pool or walking a dog are presented with blemish? By corrupting these conventional narratives and logos of experience, I Am So Emulsional envisages a subjective dream-like quality. In its entirety, the series consists of several separate rolls of film, each exposed to different contaminating agents. Incorporating urban reportage and portraiture, the film soak technique manifests in a nouveau psychedelia. How do these warped gestalts disrupt our understanding of signifiers? What are we seeing? From the photochemical vague to the chromatically electric, I Am So Emulsional exhibits the alchemy of sabotage.
CANDY'S FORTUNE, 2017
Globe Cinema, Calgary
Candy’s Fortune is an experimental aural and visual project by Sebastian Jarmula and Jamal Hamadeh. It is a 16-minute piece of morphing music and color, unattached to any narrative. The film follows a melodic structure and chromatic cadence; the only characters that are present are in the form of notes and hues. The abstract work, a stimulating sculpture of light and vibration, comes from a place of nostalgia as well as fantasy. Remember falling asleep during a late-night car ride as a child? Candy’s Fortune will bring you back to those dreams.
THE SAME PHOTO, LIKE, A HUNDRED TIMES, 2017
The University of Calgary, Calgary
The Same Photo, Like, A Hundred Times is a photographic experience through repetition that brings observers to reconsider the act of looking. In our present day of social media, camera phones, advertising, and a cultural emphasis on visual information, we are accustomed to seeing images all the time. The Same Photo, Like, A Hundred Times stays true to its name and makes us face infinity to recognize the singular.
The very nature of the photograph is perplexing; we see a scene but don’t fully understand the significance because of how it appears. Who is this woman and what does she look like? Perhaps viewers will find some mental comfort in the multitude of images, as if they would all collectively aid in structuring her face or identity. Though the images are identical, does an abundance of duplicates make a subject more knowable and close? In this age of infinite reproduction and the ability to copy and paste, what happens to the value of an artwork and our engagement with it when its number is increased? The emphasis on presentation in The Same Photo, Like, A Hundred Times elevates a sense of reality by bringing attention to how it is commonly distorted.
I AM SO EMULSIONAL, 2017
Artpoint Gallery, Calgary
I Am So Emulsional is a collection of photographic images that distort preconceptions of definitive aesthetics. The series was shot completely on 35mm film and was contaminated prior to development by a variety of liquids. Using this experimental method as a point of departure, familiar images of summer are shifted and alter traditional spatial references of Calgary. In our mind’s eye, we have a particular way of imagining summer: heavily saturated flowers, shimmering downtown skylines, idyllic fields for leisure. To what extent could this be warped until our recognition of such iconography changes our feelings towards our experience? How bad does a sunburn have to be until we cannot tell it is skin we are looking at?
In its entirety, the series consists of 6 separate rolls of film, each exposed to various contaminating agents (including the artist’s own bodily fluids). The pieces selected for the series are representative of the alchemy of sabotage. Alongside the acid burn summer commentary, I Am So Emulsional incorporates images of death and decay; thematic motifs that compliment the (anti)-aesthetic. Things inevitably break down, and this series demonstrates the destruction of beauty. Or is it vice versa?
