The animated video Betweenness builds on the artist’s previous works appropriating and manipulating images from existing materials, including films, TV shows, and cartoons, among others. Here, simple black lines trace the outlines of various sourced images—from people to insects, growing cells, dogs, and mushrooms—on a white ground. The outlines appear one after another, morphing gradually yet consistently into different shapes and forms in tandem with a haunting score composed with Ville Haimala of Amnesia Scanner. The work presents a series of moments that are otherwise difficult to observe in real life, whether the evolution of organisms or the subtle variations in one’s everyday gestures. And with all its visual references stripped down to their linear essences, Betweenness is at once a formal exercise in image construction and an emotive exploration into the relationship between organic life-forms, nature, and the realm of the inanimate. The work is also an excellent illustration of the artist’s practice, which critically examines the life cycles of images in the digital era. In showing us the blurring boundaries between original and reproduction, Laric reveals how images are in a process of constant transformation and expansion.
