Emerging artist Gregory Eddi Jones' debut publication, Another Twenty-Six Gas Stations, revisits the idyllic work of Ed Ruscha after a transformative fifty-one years. Jones exposes the nature of American crime and surveillance through a series of twenty-six screen captures from YouTube videos. The contrast between the quintessential images of the '50s and '60s seen throughout Ruscha's book and the dark images in Jones' reveals the stark changes caused both by technology and the monopolization of the American industry. American culture is now occupied by a crime-ridden public, where morality is reintroduced and reduced to an inferior standard. Through these twenty-six ephemeral images, Gregory Eddi Jones documents and eternalizes the presence of American crime and violence in the post 9/11 age.
Another Twenty-Six Gas Stations will be published in September 2014 by In the In-Between, where Jones additionally is a writer and the founding editor for the Journal of Digital Imaging Artists. In the In-Between serves as a platform for digital imaging artists who use computer-based processes to construct their projects and ideas. Through these digital creations, the artists reveal glimpses of the many speculations and concerns of our modern world. In line with these ideals, Jones' most recent projects have been regarded as, "...existential knots of critique and humor, tying together notions of artifice, absurdity and media consumption," and Another Twenty-Six Gas Stations does not fall short of this illustration.
A silent critique on the American commercial industry, Gregory Eddi Jones' Another Twenty-Six Gas Stations reveals the immoral humor of modern day human nature. His imaging deconstructs the underlying messages rooted in the videos of his subjects, and communicates the social implications they convey. Cashier clerks held at gunpoint and criminals in mid-retreat are fuzzily pictured beneath on-screen advertisements for noise-cancelling headphones and discounted business card packages. The commercialization of these videos, despite their severity and depiction of senseless violence, sends a stronger message regarding the character of American culture than the content of the videos themselves. Jones' compilation exposes how the line between informative material and money-driven entertainment often goes unnoticed due to the monopolized culture of our modern world and the humor embedded in this unsuited association.
Another Twenty-Six Gas Stations by Gregory Eddi Jones is available to pre-order this Fall at www.another26.com
Text by Kate Marin
