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Courtesy of the artist and Karma, New York

Mungo Thomson is a Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist whose work explores materiality through the cosmic lens of deep time. To say Thomson’s work is unorthodox would be an understatement. In the past, he has switched the coat-hangers at the Whitney Museum’s coat check with elaborately built hangers that resemble orchestral triangles — transforming the space into a musical instrument. More notably, he is known for a series of mirrors that emulate the cover of Time Magazine, which reflects on how time is archived.

For his latest exhibition, “Time Life” at Karma Gallery, Thomson investigates the duality between digital and analog. Through seven short videos made up of stop motion animations, the LA-based artist uses a variety of encyclopedic sources that are processed in an almost imaginary robotic book scanner that subsequently recasts this information as flip-book-like visuals.

Each short video represents a different chapter, where Thomson explores the wide gamut of human experience. From gardening and exercise to how food is prepared — an explosion of information that reflects both the internet age and how information takes on a different life once digitized. This interlude is seen as a moment of transformation, similar to when a solid becomes a gas, and opens up dialogues surrounding history, technology and perception. Mungo Thomson’s “Time Life” is on view at Karma Gallery in New York until April 16, 2022.