Jason Robinson
Crash Test, 2019
Video, 4:29
On loan from the Artist
On view in the E. Craig Wall, Jr. Academic Center from January 10th – February 20th, 2021. You may also view the video on Jason’s website.
Please note: All buildings on campus, including the Wall Center, are only open to Davidson students, faculty and staff due to the pandemic.
Artist Statement: Crash Test documents a demolition derby competition at the Orange County Fair, VA. One of the derby entrants has been digitally erased from every shot forcing the software to fill in the blank space with algorithmically chosen content. Phantom cars appear as pixels become elastic. Commercial motion graphics software and family sedans are pushed past their intended uses. In the end everything crashes.
Q&A with the Artist
We reached out to Jason to ask how narrative functions in Crash Test. The artistic intervention in this artwork—erasing one car and forcing the software to fill in the missing pixels—transforms an otherwise mundane video clip into something poetic. The derby imagery begins and ends in medias res. Cars jostle in the dirt, but it’s hard to know if any of them are “winning.” There is no sense of beginning or end. Jason’s software intervention inserts a layer of narrative unrelated to the cars’ crashing: we begin with an act of erasure by removing one of the derby cars with some post-processing magic. Next, the software fills in the gaps with dizzy glitches. In the end, Jason’s computer processor isn’t able to maintain the magic trick, and the software collapses under the strain of imperfect revisions.
Q: Can you talk a little about the extent to which narrative is (or is not) important in your artwork?
A: I try to always imbue some form of narrative into everything that I make especially when the work reads as particularly abstract. Sometimes that narrative more closely resembles a set of rules or an organizational strategy but it still provides a structure for the audience to grab on to. In Crash Test, that form is slightly obscured by omitting the beginning and ending of the demolition derby but the progression of the contest still delivers a familiar narrative of competition even if it is mostly the middle.
Jason Robinson is a filmmaker and new media artist working primarily in the medium of single-channel experimental video, animated .gifs, and live performance. His artwork has been screened at festivals and galleries both nationally and internationally including The Virginia Film Festival, Charlottesville, VA; Cinesonika, Vancouver BC; The Asheville Art Museum, NC; and Multiplexer, Las Vegas, NV. He is also the creator of Screensavers, an annual video performance series held at the Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative in Charlottesville, VA. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of Art and Art History at The University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA.