Telematic Media Arts

presents:

The Virion Transit

New Work by David Bayus

September 4 - October 2, 2021

Telematic Media Arts is pleased to present The Virion Transit, a psychological document of the Covid-19 pandemic, constructed as a fisher kingdom in which the protagonist’s fear is writ large in the world, and the threats he faces are heightened and distorted by his paranoia.

The Virion Transit begins in the underground of a dystopian, urban environment. An anxious traveler in a hazmat suit rides a subway train, hurtling through a tunnel beneath the San Francisco Bay. Scraps of newspaper and posters explain the ubiquitous devastation of a global pandemic. “Too late, it’s already here!” An insect scurries down the aisle, threatening to invade the traveler’s protective suit, followed by a still more menacing man-sized, robotic bug. 

Bayus’ universe is infected with mutant life forms, biological organisms grown impossibly large, transformed into science fiction aliens by the toxic pollutants of a failed civilization. The world is out of joint. A pig waits for the train, along with a human head walking on the elbows of its oversized arms. When he emerges from the subway, the traveler arrives in a haunting, rural landscape, where a hairless hominin hunts a wooly mammoth, and the subway rider’s attempt to escape from the ravages of the city proves futile. The looming farmhouse, where he seeks refuge, already turns out to be occupied by the disease-ridden monsters that he seeks to escape.

As a document of the on-going Covid-19 pandemic, Bayus’ film registers and explores the anxious, psychological experience of the crisis, exacerbated by the isolating demands of sheltering-in-place. To make the film, he mined his own chronic neuroses during late night bouts of insomnia. The Virion Transit presents a fisher kingdom, in which the protagonist’s psychology is writ large in the greater world. The threats he fears are heightened and distorted by his paranoia. Yet, in this same way, they do indeed give voice to the surreal truth of our current condition: when we suffer threats from the natural world that are exacerbated – if not caused – by the self defeating contradictions in society, when the magnitude of our problems can only be fathomed through wild flights of the imagination, and when we find ourselves always already infected by alien others.

David Bayus (B. 1982, Johnson City, TN) lives and works in San Francisco, CA. His work is a cross-disciplinary practice centered around experimental film-making with a focus on the dualistic relationship between science and spirituality. He is a co-founder of  BASEMENT art collective located in San Francisco's Mission District. He received his  MFA from The San Francisco Art Institute in 2010. He has exhibited work in the Bay Area at Et Al, City Limits, Ever Gold, Alter Space, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Southern Exposure, and more. Further afield, his work has been exhibited at Vacancy,  Los Angeles; Field Contemporary, Vancouver; and at Material Art Fair, Mexico City.  Editions of his work can be found in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum  of Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New  York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Artist’s Website: https://davidbayus.zone/