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Doug Fishbone
Doug Fishbone recycles the language of the mass media in order to critique some of the more unseemly aspects of life in the modern age. Appropriating photographic and digital imagery from the Internet, he constructs witty and occasionally shocking film narratives from apparently unrelated material, questioning the way the mind processes controversial visual images and concepts.
Fishbone works in a variety of media including installation, film, and performance. In recent films he has utilized the tele-visual tool of the voice over, constructing stream of consciousness narratives that blend words and images in unexpected and often uneasy ways. Fishbone’s films recalling slide shows or school lectures focus on such themes as corporate greed and violence, obesity, indifference, and the seeming inability of different cultures to understand each other at all. But despite the apparent seriousness of his subject matter, Fishbone’s work is infused with humor, and he sees himself principally as a satirist.
Co-opting the strategies of stand-up comedians and theatrical artists like George Carlin and Spalding Gray, his live performances disarm his audience: racist or sexist jokes are told with a deadpan manner so that you laugh, even when you know you shouldn’t.
In more recent works, Fishbone has expanded upon his interest in stand-up comedy, investigating the operation of humor from a number of different perspectives and media. In his recent series of digital prints, he depicts individual jokes in a “story-board” format that adds a visual component to what is usually a strictly verbal process, subverting the rhythm with which jokes normally function. He is particularly interested in the operation of jokes as commodified pieces of language and thought, and uses unexpected combinations of images and language to challenge the audience’s assumptions and generate irreverent, though sophisticated, critiques of contemporary society. His most recent project was a comic strip satirizing Western sentiments about Muslims and terrorism, which was featured in Art Review in January 2008.
