Monika Bobinska is pleased to present Translations, a solo show by James Brooks.

The exhibition explores the notion of transforming aesthetics through drawing, text, sound, video and painting.

James Brooks’ practice uses as source material strands of popular culture from the past, (iconic album covers, Jazz Age music standards, classic film scenes) which have become absorbed into the fabric of contemporary life. He consciously reworks their original associations of romanticism, melodrama, ornamentation, heroism and psychedelia into the framework of a more austere sensibility.

Through manually converting the component parts of the poignant material to media such as Morse code, International Phonetic Alphabet, half-tone drawing, monochrome paint or a slowed down musical tempo, Brooks uses these interventions of altering specific aesthetics to draw attention to the individual aura and sensibility of the absent original.

His interest in the strategies of process and durational art making informs the numerous ways in which he ‘translates’ the nostalgic sound and visual information. He adopts the ostensibly absurd position of being the manual translator of a given image, recording or text, reintroducing an awkward human presence in an era when key functions have been given over to efficient digital processing.

Stimulated by a re-appraisal of the writings of Auge, Kittler, and Lyotard, the work attempts to analyse the loss of the (analogue) individual, and calls into question our apparent drift towards standardisation.

James Brooks, (b.1974) completed his MA at Chelsea College in 2004. Curating projects include Until it makes sense (Seventeen and Galerie Thaddeus Ropac) and exhibitions include Drawing from Turner at Tate Britain, London. He recently presented an essay on drawing at the National Gallery, London (published by the University of Arts London).