fabian oefner cuts-up and recomposes cameras, exposing their inner beauty

fabian oefner loves the process of destruction and reassembly. he previously created two-dimensional works that have seen iconic sports cars ‘exploded’ using thousands of images, and photos seemingly shot by a gun. oefner breaks objects and images down into smaller pieces and reassembles them into new compositions, enhancing them in form, meaning and function.

his latest series, ‘CutUp’ sees a collection of technical objects sliced, rearranged and distorted to become new forms. each object, encapsulated in resin, is frozen in their current, deconstructed state forever.

a unique mix of high-end and low-end technologies, the production process of oefner’s ‘CutUp’ series began with vacuum and pressure chambers. these tools are used to cure the resin around the embedded object at a precise atmospheric pressure and temperature. in contrast, oefner used an old archaic band saw to slicing the objects apart, cutting through the still and video camera materials with brute force. finally, the individual object slices were meticulously polished by hand, reassembled into their new form and embedded in resin to create the eventual shape of the sculpture.

oefner’s use of cameras alludes to his earlier photographic work, where the camera itself was is merely a tool, rather than the subject. for ‘CutUp’, the tool becomes an art piece of all of its own, revealing the beauty underneath the surface of these utilitarian objects. while the series currently consists of 6 sculptures, oefner plans on expanding it into many more in the future.

project info: 

artist: fabian oefner

series: CutUp