Benjamin Muir

@benjamindmuir

About the work:

Sling and Arrows

Influenced by the New York Hardcore Zines of the 1980s/90s, this work emulates xerox techniques using texture overlays, while incorporating typesetting to guide the eye and expose its interpolations and ambiguities. In Slings and Arrows, I am proposing a kind of temporal slippage that situates the global socio-political status quo precisely where it was a century ago when Eliot penned "The Hollow Men" and "The Waste Land." Here, two unknown speakers discuss and quote a range of classic poems that shed light on the sorry state of planetary affairs, underlaid by Da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man," The Vulgate (Latin Bible), and the plaque from the Spaceship Pioneer, suggesting the perpetuity of historical violence our global society cannot seem to be reprieved of.

About the artist:

Benjamin D. Muir is a reformed juvenile delinquent, writer, academic, artist, and musician born and writing on unceded Dharug land. His work interrogates the intersections between grief, trauma, horror, and the unintended consequences of modernity. He holds a Doctor of Creative Arts from Western Sydney University where he works as a casual academic. His debut novel, The McMillan Diaries won the 2019 AAWP Chapter One Prize and is expected to be available for pre-order via Kith Books late 2024-early 2025.