Wang & Söderström is comprised of spatial/furniture designer Anny Wang and architect Tim Söderström. Soon after the pair began collaborating, their experience of 3D software grew into an artistic practice that broke the boundaries of their respective disciplines and extended across the borders of art, design and animation.
The aesthetics of their work is perhaps best described as that of hyper-real heterogeneity with the interplay of glossy and matte surfaces and the contrasting of hard and soft forms. They also include an aspect of handcraft in the digital production where forms and shapes are given the look of a human touch, as another allusion to the physical world. And it’s in the physical world where they find their inspiration. The work derives from experiences, images or phenomenon from the world around us and is subsequently translated to digital imagery. The concepts of the physical world have characteristics that don’t exist in the digital world. These concepts, whether it’s movement, light or colour must be analysed down to the smallest detail before they can be translated to the digital world. When the translation is slightly off, and we become aware of the ruse of the digital representation, then we will be forced to additionally analyse the visual input and our senses can be expanded.
For Anny Wang and Tim Söderström, the 3D software becomes a canvas and a limitless medium with which to create unexpected experiences, a phrase the pair often use to describe their work. These unexpected experiences, where well known aspects of the physical world are challenged in the 3D animation as you see something familiar and at the same time slightly warped is mind tickling.
In the exhibition Transitional Speculation the duo has fully realised their work as digital imaging as well as physical staging. It offers an opportunity for us to experience a larger number of works that interact in a complete circuit. The digital objects are given physical form and the borders between the digital and the physical are yet again blurred. Layers of perception and meaning are put on top of each other as the objects appear in different forms, medium and materials.
The exhibition is presented by Volvo Studio in collaboration with Young Art!
Wang & Söderström is founded by Swedish duo Anny Wang and Tim Söderström. Anny Wang (b. 1990) graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design at HDK, School of Design and Crafts, Gothenburg, 2014. Tim Söderström (b. 1988) received a Master of Architecture at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen, 2015.
Projektnamn: Volvo Studio