DOOM POP PROTOTYPES

Sept 5 to 27 | Thursday, Friday and Saturday | Noon to 5 p.m.
Opening Reception | Sept 5 | 6 to 9 p.m.
Step Gallery | Grant Street Studios

Doom Pop is a collaborative installation by Jeremy Ripley and Tra Bouscaren about business and death and the business of death. 

We use reclaimed billboards, salvaged neon, e-waste and metal pulled from demolition sites to create tornadoes, flags and body bags. Corporate slogans meant to seduce are recast as monuments to disaster. A tornado made of billboards, and another made of styrofoam, point to the churn of consumer culture, and to its climate impact. Body bags covering the floor mark the human toll. Billboards become memento mori. Turning spectacle against itself, Doom Pop is a storm of reconfigured media where advertising is rendered in terms of its effects. 

Tra Bouscaren is an Assistant Professor and Director of the eXMeLab (Expanded Media Lab) in the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. He earned a BA in Philosophy from Yale University, an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. Bouscaren’s work has been featured at the Mattress Factory (Pittsburgh), Vittorio Manalese (Berlin), the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, the Victor I Fils Gallery (Madrid), San Diego Art Institute (now ICA San Diego), Hallwalls (Buffalo), Fort Mason Center for the Arts (San Francisco), the Florida Prize Exhibition at the Orlando Museum of Art, Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (Philadelphia) and Lincoln Center (NYC), among many other venues. 

Jeremy Ripley is a versatile artist and program manager with expertise spanning textiles, sculpture, and fabrication. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Textiles from Parsons School of Design and has honed his craft across multiple disciplines, including hand weaving, fiber arts and textile repair. With a solid foundation in visual arts, Jeremy’s work encompasses a broad range of materials, from traditional fibers like wool and cotton to more industrial materials such as wood, metal and plastic. Currently, Jeremy serves as the Program Manager at Grant Street Studios at Arizona State University, where he oversees the daily operations of a 45,000-square-foot facility serving MFA students. 

Image: DOOM POP