The call for entries for this exhibition asked for work that explores issues relating to commodities or commodification, but we quickly realized that the narrative these artists tell goes much deeper. The work presented explores the political, social, and cultural ramification of a post-industrial society while exposing "Utopian" desires and states as fictional. What we "buy" has become paramount, whether we are purchasing a home or an accessory cum fetish, "buying" into the latest media-political spin or cultural propaganda, or being suckered into a good lie; and what is being "sold" seems to more and more allude to the imagined perfect place or state of things Utopia. These artists foreground this proposed Utopian state, rendering it a monotonous bore, fetishized, frightening, antiquated, defunct, or make-believe, and thereby place "Utopia" within a fictional and ineffectual light.

Two of the artists explore dystopic narratives relating to the "home." Tim Waldrops Model Homes is a somber and quiet portrayal of "home" or housing. He has commodified the home, serialized it and stamped each out to the point where it has lost the potential for warmth, nurturing, the unique and personal experience one thinks of when thinking of home. Instead, his fabricated houses are a stylish stand-in for these experiences. They have become toys, miniaturized versions to play out scenarios of urban sprawl, neighborhood planning, dream house, and prefabrication. Waldrop's work illuminates "the idea of a standard that many try to measure up to . . . the epitome of the perfect home" (Waldrop). Daniel E.C. Nuez-Showns Home-Less asks several questions regarding the housing market. Among them, is it right to treat a home as a commodity when so many within the world are homeless or live in substandard housing, and should housing be considered a privilege (for the privileged) or a basic human right (for all)?

"Changes are occurring throughout the country of Vietnam, but not for the enrichment of the Vietnamese culture; instead the country is cloning itself to be a cheaper version of Western culture" (Le). While Les work is rooted in fact, Jason Wallace Triefenbach is interested in the allegorical possibilities of art making. Triefenbachs work conveys a narrative about the Isle of Confusion, located in "the Archipelago of Much," commenting on its economy, industry (tourism, hospitality, and cat litter mining and export), and environmental problems (specifically, its continuing trouble with erosion). Humorous, yet sad, it could be true. It sounds reasonable, even familiar. This allegorical invention could be Utopian or dystopian, depending on the reading.

Michael B. Zolman's work, being the most contemporaneously controversial, will surely enrage and repulse some, and to others, it will warrant a sigh (possibly even a thoughtful one) or a hurrah for the deconstruction of Fox News Network. His work, on the most obvious level, is a comment on TV media, specifically media representation. Here Zolman has appropriated from the public domain. He has digitally captured TV media images of war and culture and then has overlaid them with textual information (from TV media as well) in the form of network identification, tickers, and bylines. The punch line is that the image and text in each are dissonant, and the deconstructed reading that becomes apparent to the viewer is one in which subjects worthy of public attention, here war (fear), death (patriotism), and Disney Land/World (charity), are in bed with the economy. And not sleeping, but copulating so that any distinction between matters of money and anything else is lost; in fact, it is taken for granted that money matters are indeed woven within everything.