Our degree how private view was the other night and went really well! lots of people enjoying the mascots and lots of people asking about the 4th floor! This meant we were also able to go round and look at the work of our peers. The first work of interest was Lenny Watson’s piece Trouble in Clubland where she tells the story of live music venues closing down and nightlife culture relocating to small-scale and domestic environments. It’s told through a screen recording of someone searching through YouTube and taking you on a journey through other material. It’s an nicely relative way of using found footage – as opposed to just cutting them together seamlessly, you see the search and the jumps to related videos. You also see that it’s 1.32am when these are being searched for. The environment is key too; a sofa surrounded by the chaos of empty beer cans and cigarette ends. It all contributes to a picture of a group of people sitting around watching/sharing YouTube videos, chatting about what’s happened to the club scene.
Chloe Abrahams made an exceptionally good film about acting and reality and the lines between them. Needless to say, it was right up our street and we were so excited to feel so manipulated and confused by a work; we continued to think about it much after we left the show, running bits of dialogue through in our heads. The setup was Chloe and her sister were having a conversation, sometimes you could tell they were reading from a script but you weren’t sure if that script was made for/by them or it was a conversation they had overheard or made with someone else. That line of thought is just the tip of the iceberg. We can’t wait to see more of her stuff in the future.
Connie Search made a discussion between two slide projectors about becoming obsolete. Each slide was another sentence of dialogue, a bit of a one liner but funny all the same.
Kana Ikezawa was showing some photographs (or potentially videos) on side-by-side screens. We’ve heard Kana speak before about her work and she displays photos of monitors because people expect things to move. A piece of paper will be dismissed but we expect TV screens to display moving images.
Emma Clayton made a film about falling from great heights which was positioned on a back to back TV screens suspended from the roof, viewable from the second-floor bridge. The film was strangely hypnotic, perhaps due to the excellent positioning.
Billy Sassi started a bowling team called The Bad Boy Bowlers. His work is made up of merchandise, trophies, framed team photographs, and a documentary. It’s all set up like the domestic shrine of an amateur sporting enthusiast. It’s very thorough and planned, it all fits very snug together.
Elliot Hewgill’s film brings previously unfeeling cables to life. Personified with a demon-like voice we hear about the frustrations of the life hacker who wants all their cables neat and tidy using paper clips or specially constructed desks. The cable drawing is a really great touch, we always enjoy when people are able to incorporate the essential elements of an installation into their work.
Campbell McConnell has managed to increase the production of his usual bizarre performances to bring us a Roman table tennis tournament complete with singing assistants and a procession of a cardboard Trojan Horse. Truly insane.
Finally, there’s Sophie Popper’s incredible audio guide which takes you on a rhyming journey down the main exhibition space, discussing the potential conversations that might occur while viewing the work on display. It’s both very fun and comical but also delivers thoughtful critique. Taking the platform of the degree show and running with it. It’s been a good 4 years, we’ve all done pretty well.
