Aurélien Froment, still from Pulmo Marina (2010)

On view through May 1st at Khastoo Gallery in Los Angeles is the two person exhibition, Dark After After Dark. The show features the new work of French artist, Aurélien Froment, and English artist, Ryan Gander. Each is presenting a separate film or video projection, a meditation on a singular object in motion. Froment’s Pulmo Marina—a dayglow documentary of sorts about the Egg-yolk Jellyfish—reads like a psychedelic seventh grade science class video, which you can’t take your eyes off of. The academic sounding narrator, whose voice graces Gander’s piece as well, soothingly lectures on the anatomy of this particular type of jellyfish (formally known as the Phacellophora camtschatica), and then jarringly shifts in tone with a quirky aside, saying, “Jellyfish just don’t fit the categories.”

Ryan Gander, still from Best work EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER (2010)

This tongue-in-cheek narration intensifies in Gander’s Best work EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER—a 16mm film projection of a sequence of a mini DV tape floating through space. Over the visual homage to the 1989 flying toaster screensaver, the narrator earnestly discusses the piece, saying at one point, “This particular work has been a challenge to make, a work that talks about the notion of cliché without simply remaining one. And I’m still unsure whether I’ve succeeded. A video tape floating through space is, of course, a cliché.” Both pieces provide a humorous—and eerily unsettling at times—juxtaposition between this trusted voice and visual of academia and science, against the humanized and self-doubting interjections of the narrator.

Aurélien Froment is a French artist who currently lives in Dublin, Ireland. Ryan Gander was born in Chester and currently lives and works in London, England. Both artists’ work has been exhibited extensively internationally. Dark After After Dark is their first collaborative show in Los Angeles.