Oliver Laric @ Tramway

Searching for cures for insomnia can lead you to niche edges of the internet. On YouTube, channels are dedicated to Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, a relaxed mental state that gives you tingles on your scalp. There are videos showing towels being folded to a whispered soundtrack, flight attendants deliver safety demonstrations, and make-up tutorials are often lauded as unintentionally replicating this phenomenon.

Oliver Laric’s latest video installation seems derived from this subculture. His animated film shows a frog smoothly morph into a bedside cabinet, masculine becomes feminine, and anime girls become furries before returning to their original state. Parts are accompanied by an ambient piano soundtrack that wouldn’t feel out of place in one of those time-lapse videos of a stranger’s ageing face.

The success of Laric’s latest video derives from making mental states visual, and written on his figures’ bodies. There’s a moment in his film when the hands of an animated figure transfigure into gnarled branches of a tree, accurately performing a feeling of bodily estrangement. The film deals well with bodies resisting binary categorisation, and gives them space: as animations transition across gender, age and species, Laric exhibits the ambiguity of being in-between.

Laric’s previous work has dealt intelligently with representation in the age of the internet. In 2012, the artist began making 3D scans of ancient objects and published the data for free. This new work continues his shrewd commentary on the subject matter. But while his previous work had a real, concrete referent, his new material makes a point of questioning boundaries between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ things. Strange objects are rendered lifelike before our eyes, as if we are witnessing a Photoshop tutorial. Once finished, we observe the lifelike detail and wonder if these objects exist. His work has become pure simulacrum, and it’s all the better for it. 

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Tramway, Glasgow, until 19 Mar