JahJahSphinx: CDJ
27 August 2011 - 06 November 2011
JahJahSphinx is a web-based artist collective who individually contribute to a blog consisting entirely of images. Originally initiated in 2006 as a form of image exchange between a network of artists, the blog fast grew into a type of visual conversation. Found mostly online, JahJahSphinx's eclectic assortment of imagery allows inquisitive and humorous relationships to emerge between seemingly unrelated subject matter. Photos including modernist furniture, dreadlocks, pets dressed as people, wild animals, high fashion, 80s hip hop, soft porn and a great deal more are added regularly to create an endless scroll of imagery.
In their first offline project JahJahSphinx reproduces a web-resolution image for the Te Tuhi Billboard series. The collective selected an image of a pampered show dog, previously posted on the blog, to be reproduced as three identical large-scale billboards. Being physically printed, rather than existing virtually on the internet, the appropriated image gains an additional ridiculousness in this new public context. As a physical addition to the JahJahSphinx blog, the street location brings to question the potential use and availability of digital images found online. The work also provides a strange alternative to the local urban landscape - by being equally as eye-catching as the nearby commercial signage and advertising but markedly more bizarre. An oddity that might encourage curiosity, delight or general weirdness for local commuters and passersby.