Caught between sleek animation and superb graphic seduction, JTwine’s net-based work “NIESATT” is alive with visual and emotional charge.

“I was dropped into the corporate world when I was 20 and I was disgusted by it. To express my unhappy situation I start literally to draw myself out of it. Power structures, technology and human relations became a Leitmotif in my work.” -JTwine.

The issues JTwine grapples with are consumption, overload and pseudo- information. The work has an intelligence that is not pontificating to make one feel uncomfortable. Arresting one’s imagination with the pace of animated graphics, the issues that belie NIESATT-PARALLEL WORLDS present themselves in short statements and sketches. And yet, the visual presentation and narrative structure, which slyly glide between advertising, web-graphic and simulated game styles, is unique enough to open the viewer to questions rather than being a dumb receptor. His stance keeps the questions in areas of exploration, seeking solutions, a space that is open-ended. In an interview, he says “I’m interested in truth not beauty. Distortion or essentialisation might be necessary to create a true image to reveal visions of the human drama on the battlefield of reality in our commercialized and machine dependent world.”

JTwine’s website, PHA GREYLAND has a number of such diaryistic logs that locate him well enough for us to feel we know him.

JTwine is a net-scribbler, fusing his sketches, observations, and videos into a mini-world with attributes of his sensations: visually audible noise. The site is constantly unfolding, click by click, revealing layer upon layer of involvement and introspection on issues of power structures, technology and human relations. In NIESATT, the notion of “parallel worlds” translates into dividing every inch of the screen into slithers of multi-layered, scrolling, exploding, animated, visual, wordy, flash, gifs; the website seems unlimited and unbound by time and space constraints. One can get lost in it, but never feel at a dead end for all the links, tunnel and merge into the world of JTwine.

Then again, we may question what draws one into this net-based work? What is it that compels us to explore it? I’d say it’s the sheer pleasure of the unexpected image, the artistic “time travel”, and the visceral hand-drawn sketch with its dynamic high voltage 2D screen avatar, which makes space for the throbbing vibrancy of the site.

Maybe this is the equivalent of submersive emotional intelligence on the net.