Tyler Bohm — Reclamation Project #3
Reviewed by Chenoa Baker

As many of the artists [at WaveForms], Bohm creates the feeling of stabilization and destabilization in Reclamation Project #3. First, they establish imagery of an urban landscape: buildings, a street, palm trees, and cars on the road. As the visuals progress, it becomes a mirage or better yet, a veil, as that word doesn’t inherently have a positive connotation. It transforms into a landscape of cacti, cars falling apart and passing on the right side, and ruins of Indigenous architecture of the Southwest. Technological advancement (perceived as a utopia) dovetails into dystopia through the erasure of previous technologies before it and what was analog.

Human perception breathes life into technical realities, which evokes Bohm's artist statement, and the intent "to explore this evolving technological landscape by imagining futurist scenarios that reflect broader hopes and fears about the present… [and to] probe the effects of contemporary technologies on how we view ourselves and the world around us, [explore] the nature of perception in the digital age …[while] navigating the fuzzy gray area between the digital and physical.” They often use CAD software and laser cutting to translate digital designs into physical objects, and to embed video within hybrid media works. That is why my nostalgia—for using past technologies or for when running outside was more common than using iPads indoors—came in waves.

[Edited by curator, Georgie Friedman]