Sam De Buysere – Dogs in Cars are a Dying Breed – a billboard

And it’s about time
And this is what it looks like 

De Prismatron presenteert een nieuw werk van Sam De Buysere, waarin tekst, beeld en ruimtelijke context samenkomen. Twee zinnen uit het openingsnummer van Being Funny in a Foreign Language van The 1975 verschijnen op het roterende billboard. Deze ondergaan een ritmische onderbreking, tekst wordt zichtbaar, verdwijnt en keert terug. Daarnaast maakt een groene lichtpuntprojectie een dunne, levendige lijn die langs het tekst oppervlak snijdt.

Dogs in Cars are a Dying Breed – a billboard gaat niet enkel over wat op het billboard wordt getoond, maar evenzeer over wat zich buiten het beeldkader afspeelt – over informatieoverdracht, bemiddeling, het vangen of terughalen van wat de afbeelding juist heeft verlaten, wat zich niet wil tonen. Wat achterblijft zijn sporen en echo’s, die het beeld des te sterker bezetten.

Prismatron presents a new work by Sam De Buysere, in which text, image, and spatial context converge. Two lines from the opening track of Being Funny in a Foreign Language by The 1975 appear on the rotating billboard. These lines undergo a rhythmic interruption—text becomes visible, disappears, and returns. In parallel, a green light projection traces a thin, vivid line that cuts across the surface of the text.

Dogs in Cars are a Dying Breed – a billboard is not only about what is shown on the billboard, but equally about what unfolds beyond its frame—about the transmission of information, mediation, the act of capturing or retrieving what has just slipped out of view, what refuses to reveal itself. What remains are traces and echoes, which inhabit the image all the more intensely.

Sam De Buysere is an artist (b. 2000) who lives and works in Belgium. He obtained a master’s degree in visual arts from KASK & Conservatory, the School of Arts in Ghent (2023). His work concerning the archive of Dogs in Cars Are a Dying Breed was awarded the Mathilde E. Horlait-Dapsens Foundation Prize (2023), for which he presented a diverse yet coherent body of work that includes text, installation, photography, and video. More recently, he was selected—alongside nine other artists—to take part in the 20th edition of ArtContest (2024), a Brussels-based non-profit organization that has supported numerous promising young artists in recent years. In addition to his personal artistic research, he was invited—along with several other artists—to contribute to the book presentation of Mekhitar Garabedian’s latest publication, Import-Export, Friperie, at BOEKS in Ghent (2023). On the occasion of the exhibition, their contributions were brought together in the publication Import – Export, Friperie. Selected Bales.

Font: Seismic by Fraser Muggeridge studio