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Ian Haig

Date 
b. 1964
Melbourne
Victoria
Australia

For his video Superhuman Factory Online [2000] Ian Haig shot footage of the Toba International Erotic Science Fiction Museum and the Grand Old International Adult Museum, both in Japan.  The video is virtually static, a series of shots revealing mannequins apparently engaged in sexually depraved acts in sets reminiscent of low budget, 60’s era science fiction television. Inter-titles reveal details of the action: “Sexual co-workers go about their business with very pleasing result” and, later, another declaims: “Sexual biopods fulfill human promise...” Edited together to a gurgling soundtrack of electronic noises, Superhuman Factory Online is disturbingly funny, revealing a twisted fantasy of repressed sexual violence enacted in a pseudoscientific setting.  

For Haig, this speculative notion of the human body in collision with invasive technologies and ideologies has been a constant throughout his video work. I Was Made for Loving You [2004] is a strobing catalogue of flesh-coloured plastic machines while Li Liberv rel reguli [2005] is a blast of animated horror that amps up the carnage and humour.  How to Make a Monster [2005], with a single shot of a man removing a cleansing face mask, is somewhat atypical in Haig’s work, being both deliberately minimal and directly referential, emulating an almost identical shot from the film American Psycho [2000]. 

Haig has worked with installation and his gallery pieces such as Excelsior 3000 Bowel Technology Project [2001], Brain Tumour Helmets with Microwaves [2002] and Bimbo Laboratory [2005] trade in an ever-increasing theatrical maximalism. Dirt Factory [2005] was a gallery installation featuring dual video screens flashing slogans and strobing drawings, sculptural found objects encrusted with Corn Flakes and demented drawings on paper, explored the fanatical founding philosophy of the Kellogg’s empire.   

 


Author 
Andrew Frost
Birth place
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Period of activity 
from 1983
Other works 

Selected solo exhibitions: Zoso, Project Space Gallery, RMIT, Melbourne, 2007. The Dirt Factory, VCA Gallery, Melbourne, Slick, Conical, Melbourne, 2006. Flesh Coloured Plastic, Eas Jaske Gallery, Sydney, Spacement Gallery, Melbourne, The Dirt Factory, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, Bimbo Laboratory, CAST Gallery, Hobart, 2005.

Other group exhibitions 

Selected group exhibitions: Bon Scott Project, Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth, 2008. U-Turn, Glendale College Art Gallery, Los Angeles, Living Elvis, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne,Loose Ends, Loose Projects, Sydney, Open Studio, Ssamzie Space Gallery, Seoul, Animated, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, 2007.


Selected publications: Art at the crossroads, Realtime No. 82, December- January, 2007. Trick or Treat, Eyes Lies and Illusions, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, catalogue, The Dirt Factory, The Sunday Age, April 30th, 2006, Happy as a Pig in Art, Realtime, June-July, 2006.Interzone: Media Arts in Australia, Thames & Hudson, 2005. 


Australia
Chronicles of the new human organism - 32 mins, – from Chronicles of the New Human Organism, via Vimeo 
From Liberv vel Reguli!, via d'archive
From Liberv vel Reguli!, via d'archive – from Liberv vel Reguli!, via d/Archive 
From Trick or Treat, via d'archive
From Trick or Treat, via d'archive – from Trick or Treat, via d/Archive 
SomeThing - Ian Haig, 2011, – from Some Thing, via Vimeo 
Ian Haig, The Frozen Dead - Cinematic Homeostasis Device, 2013
Ian Haig, The Frozen Dead - Cinematic Homeostasis Device, 2013 – from The Frozen Dead - cinematic homeostasis device 
Ian Haig, Meat friends on the internet, 2014
Ian Haig, Meat friends on the internet, 2014 – from Meat friends on the internet 
Ian Haig, Fleshify the World, 2013
Ian Haig, Fleshify the World, 2013 – from Fleshify the World 
I was made for loving you, 3 mins, 2004, music: Nat Bates
I was made for loving you, 3 mins, 2004, music: Nat Bates  
Ectoplasmic baby fat provider, 1.30 mins, 2002, sound: Philip Samartzis
Ectoplasmic baby fat provider, 1.30 mins, 2002, sound: Philip Samartzis 
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