Jeffrey Stuker

Los Angeles-based artist Jeffrey Stuker joins us for this episode of Cultivar. We discuss his video work on view in Made in L.A. at the Hammer Museum, as well as the concept of second nature, butterfly mimicry, contemporary image culture, and the shared algorithms of 3D graphics and ecological modeling.

Jeffrey Stuker is an artist and is currently a coeditor of the journal Effects and the director of the Seeld Library, a project bringing together a community of thinkers whose scholarly and artistic practices explore the phenomenon of second nature. A central focus of Stuker’s work is mimicry—both in nature, where it provides a strategy for the survival of certain species, and in digital imaging, which can manifest hyper-lifelike representations of reality. Stuker creates carefully rendered computer-generated images, planting coded historical, scientific, and industrial references within. These images exist as part simulation and part documentation; their factualness remains elusive or, rather, allegorical. Current and upcoming exhibitions include: Made in L.A. at the Hammer Museum; Painting Stone at Villa Lontana, Rome; The International Biennial of Photography, Thessaloniki Greece; and Objects of Desire at LACMA.

Follow Stuker: IG @jeffrey_stuker / https://www.jeffreystuker.com/