Jordan Hill is a Coast Salish (T’Sou-ke Nation) new media artist from Vancouver Island whose work alludes to the blurred line between fact and fiction within contemporary culture. Hill questions how we navigate a spatially manipulated world where truth is incredibly difficult to locate both physically and virtually. He juxtaposes unexpected ideas and seemingly unrelated locales, uncovering the intersections between urban and rural facades in ways that transform how we think about both. Hill’s work utilizes our relationship with technology and virtual imagery in a way that helps us foster a deeper connection with the world away from it.
In the piece, Horizontal Vertigo, Hill addresses themes of exhaustion, facade, and transparency in a contemporary society asking too much of our time and energy. In an era where physical and digital environments impose relentless pressure, there is a constant insistence for society and individuals to be producing, to be moving. We find these pressures both in physical and digital environments, becoming increasingly impossible to escape, resulting in perpetual exhaustion. Empathy becomes exhausting through the unrelenting nature of capitalism. We start to become desensitized to this movement, our thoughts and experiences become fleeting. Horizontal Vertigo is a response to facades and spaces relying on the tiredness we are conditioned to accept.
This interactive installation allows viewers to walk in front of and through the projections, casting a silhouette revealing the brutalism behind the trees. These screens behave as a manufactured facade as a way to question our spatial relationship between the physical and digital. In what ways do we allow our intuition to be undermined by a fast-moving world? In a world of content where the line between fact and fiction becomes blurred, it is important we find moments to slow down. This project gives autonomy back to the viewer, allowing for the time and space to spend with a moment that might otherwise push you through it.
In Peripheral Loading, Hill addresses themes of memory, growth, the virtual, and exhaustion in a contemporary digital age in which we are overexposed to rapid expansion of information. The world is never truly off; we are subject to constant change at all scales, our attention as a commodity is at a premium and can become as fleeting as the information we generate. This project pokes fun at urban sprawl development sites and the temporary fence around them. Lined with mesh, they host utopic renderings of what's to come--a promise of lifestyle and luxury. Much like headlines and thumbnails in virtual spaces, development facades and renderings rely on immediacy to make quick shallow impressions, in spite of the contents they hold.
In Peripheral Loading, Hill reconstructs the lifeless and flat qualities of these renderings, and encourages viewers to be critical of their relationship within ever-present rapid growth. How do we effectively keep track of our ever-changing public spaces if our attention is at a constant divide? Hill’s interrogation of the development site comes from living in 3 Canadian cities in 5 years, all going through rapid growth movements. Specifically, he reflects on his experience of watching and feeling space change in real-time, to be replaced with fences, craters, and concrete skeletons -- taking away shortcuts, sightlines, and memories of what was before them.
The Missing Distance will be on view in the Main Gallery from September 13 - October 26, 2024.
This exhibition contains flashing lights, images, and other luminous stimulations which may induce epileptic seizures in certain individuals.
Jordan Hill is a Coast Salish (T’Sou-ke Nation) new media artist from Vancouver Island whose work alludes to the blurred line between fact and fiction within contemporary culture. Hill’s work utilizes our relationship with technology and virtual imagery in a way that helps us foster a deeper connection with the world away from it.
The Missing Distance, Main Gallery, 2024.
This exhibition acknowledges the support of Arts Nova Scotia.
This exhibition acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.