limbic
bait

4 June – 9 July 2016

limbic bait contemplates heat mapping technologies designed to visualise the subconscious decision making processes of consumers. Using a heat map generator employed to chart subject’s attention to visual advertising materials, this work highlights the strange methods companies are using to supposedly exploit purchase impulses driven by the limbic system – the parts of the brain which control primal urges and emotions.

limbic bait is part of a series of interrelated projects hosted by The Physics Room Library between April and December 2016. This series will explore language, techology, communication and distribution; responding to the library as a political mechanism and a catalyst for certain networks and knowledge economies.

James Oram works primarily in video and sculpture, often using phenomena of contemporay culture to explore aspects of social behaviour and individual existence. Recent exhibitions include: Sleight of hand, Dunedin Public Art Gallery; Old Brain Prospect, Dog Park Art Project Space, Christchurch; Physical Video, Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA); Brisbane; Unnerved: The New Zealand Project, GOMA; But It's Worth it, Christchurch Art Gallery; and Domestic departures, Chalk Horse, Sydney.