Alex Seton
All Your Base Are Belong To Us
Sydney
Selected Works
Dropdown IconArtwork
All Your Base Are Belong to Us 2008

marble caesarstone hardwood
145 × 75 × 116cm

AYBABTU wallpaper 2008

6mdf panels and plaster
200 × 360 × 13cm

Cats 2008

resin
23 × 18 × 11cm

Jedi Kid  2008

marble golf ball retriever hardwood
145 × 75 × 116cm

You Tube 2008

Marble Webcam Hardwood
145 × 75 × 116cm

Exhibition Text
All Your Base Are Belong to Us 2008
by Alex Seton

The artwork All Your Base Are Belong to Us was created as part of a series Memeoid responding to the changing way we tell and share our stories today. In another era past the mythology of monarchs, empires, saints and sinner were encapsulated in the monuments, statuary and effigies. Saints and kings were often depicted atop their marble death beds or sarcophagi. The onset of the digital era and the tools of social media of the internet has rapidly increased the volume of shared stories and characters, and speed with which they are shared. These phenomena of the web are called memes, and they seem to have a life of their own. Famous examples are the 'Star Wars Kid' and the 'Dancing Baby', both of whom we all love to hate. The carved marble work explores the invasive nature of internet memes - the often fleeting entertainment and the sense of community they provide lies in their infectious nature that preys on societies desires and need for diversion. This sculpture work playfully entombs these net fads into solid stone, creating fictional monuments to the stories of now. These memes rapidly evolve far away from their initial beginnings to become barely recognisable, like many of our historical figures, more myth than fact.

'All Your Base are Belong to Us' is a line from a 1991 Sega Drive Computer Game Zero Wing by Toaplan, which was poorly translated from Japanese. This mistranslated english phrase became an internet phenomenon in late 2000–2002. The phrase came to prominence and notoriety as the result of the spread the slogan to highlight any factual errors in the online world, and rapidly evolved to the sign-off 'AYBABTU' signifying that all preceding material is a fraud. The character, Cats, the evil character who delivers the line was originally a frozen 8bit image, is animated and brought to life within the digital photoframe, destined to be trapped placatedly within the digital realm. Using the colour scheme embodied by the character, little barrack houses representing each colour component are placed it on the folded duvet where the character can rest at last in the physical realm. The work becomes about the act translation- of the game to its modern form, of the digital to analogue, of perpetual evolution to sold fixed form, from hard to soft. And in all that flux, peace and stillness is implied within the rest of the bed setting.

Sullivan+Strumpf acknowledge the Indigenous People of this land, the traditional custodians on whose Country we work, live and learn. We pay respect to Elders, past and present, and recognise their continued connection to culture, land, waters and community.

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