Skip to main content
"This is a document for coping with the death of before," begins Dynamic Horizons Ltd. Advanced New Hire Manual, local artist Tabitha Nikolai's fictional field guide for life after the inevitable cultural apocalypse.
Nikolai's newest installation in her Dynamic Horizons series is billed as a pop-up show of wearable technology. The exhibition-cum-boutique walks a fine line between absurdity and sincerity. And that's fitting for a show mocking the Urban Outfitters model—take painfully trendy styles and mass produce them for a culture obsessed with being relevant.
Wandering into Composition Gallery looks eerily familiar to shopping in the West End or Alberta Arts District: Loose air plants and too many Edison bulbs. Nikolai's pieces—dystopian plastic sculptures that look like alien relics—sit on reclaimed wood tables, or perch on twee antique chests. She's created a warm, earthy envelope of space inspired by one of Portland's primary cultural exports—the DIY homemaker aesthetic.
But there is an air of something more insidious here.
Stark against their background, Nikolai's sculptures are amalgamations of wearable tech gear, sea creatures and human body parts, which she rendered with 3-D modeling software, and created them using white nylon and plastics. The Apple watch attached to a Nintendo Power Glove is nothing revolutionary, but Nikolai added underwater coral and a tiny human head. Another standout piece looks like an Oculus Rift that was unearthed from an e-waste dump filled with seaweed. It's a study in comparison, sitting by a 35mm camera and this scrawl on the gallery wall: "Meat, meet meta."
Among vintage film slides, raw wood pallets and a bootleg Pendleton blanket, Nikolai's works look like prototypes for an absurd future that merges two opposing aesthetics. The unifying factor, according to Nikolai, is consumers' desire. Whether it's a locally sourced, handcrafted, unique and sustainable pine table or a Macbook Pro made in Shenzhen—rest assured, the $4,000 price tag includes the cost of self-satisfaction. ANDRE FILIPEK.
SEE IT: Dynamic Horizons Ltd.: Intangibles Product Launch is at Composition Gallery, 625 NW Everett St., 408-375-2159, compositioncomposition.com. Through Oct. 31.
Willamette Week
