Lauren Dunn is a Naarm-based artist working with images, sculpture, sound and video to negotiate our relationship to photography through a subversion of its codes and conventions. Their work navigates the myriad political and ethical dilemmas of commodity culture, specifically how an excess of images experienced in our virtual and physical worlds might shape our consumer aspirations. Research into Uber Eats and luxury food consumption, for example, have formed the basis of works that critique moments of significant cultural shift, and the role that images play within these contexts.
Addressing the rapid flux of online images, algorithms and the political context of image circulation, Dunn’s recent body of work Portrait of a Cyborg manipulates found/stolen images to consider boundaries between human/machine via recognised figures such as Kim Kardashian, Bryan Johnson and Elon Musk. Dunn’s work critically engages contemporary politics and power relations, highlighting technological mediations and modifications of the body to explore how technology and popular cultures drive our desires and impact our identities.
There is an oyster presented like a mausoleum. It looks attractive. You can almost feel its scent and this impression is sinister—because the oyster resembles a human ear. … The images’ dominant palette is green. But far from evoking the colour of fresh food, this green seems to come from the land of the virtual. A distorted vegetable and an egg looking at its own food-wrapped reflection add on to the surrealist glare of Dunn’s installation.
Miriam La Rosa, ‘Fertile Ground’, Memo Review, September 2021.