Inspired by depictions of the physical newspaper in popular culture, the print-based sculptures in roll! stack! fold! break! (old man yells at cloud) by Pudy Tong, play up the notions of superficial knowing and tenuous materiality. The veneer of mimesis falls away when these haphazardly recreated newspaper props are brought outside the context of the screen, revealing them to be incomplete fabrications whose verisimilitude is merely convincing when played directly to the camera. In a similar way, many aspects of news construction today, with its high-definition aesthetics, unrelenting chyrons and superimposed narrative arcs, belie the murkiness, slowness and relative flatness of the stories that are being told.

Installed at Open Studio, April 22, 2022 – June 4, 2022