We’re still attempting to sort out the Internet in our new house and therefore having both Wi-Fi and the laptop with the blog posts is a rarity. But the good news is we’ve got the full package for the Brookes and Groves exhibition; managed to get a chair, side table, photo album and booked a photographer!
‘Digital Wasteland’ is coming along nicely too – we’ve collected all the content and stitched it together to generate one massive film. A favourite is Stuart Layton's 'Somewhere Between the Sublime and the Ridiculous' (linked >>>here<<<).
The group show with others from CSM is also looking like it might finally happen too – Bones and Pearl Gallery are free from the 28th-30th of October which should be perfect! We attended the opening of Peter Wächtler’s new solo show at Chisenhale Gallery. It’s always quite a decision to take a huge amazing space, such as Chisenhale Gallery, and only show one film projected onto a wall. We always approach these sorts of shows fairly gingerly since quite regularly it can be rather indulgent or unapologetic. These aren’t necessarily bad characteristics but exhibitions, which consider the viewer’s experience, tend to me more rewarding. The film itself is made through traditional cel animation, soundtracked by a rock and roll song. The animation depicts the central subject’s departure along a country road, set against a backdrop of moonlit landscapes. The protagonist’s repetitive stasis invokes an ambiguous relationship with acts of progress or withdrawal, as well as our own misplaced desires. The film hints towards this notion of leaving; the character in the film is walking away from the audience and then the song itself also speaks about leaving. A thoughtful aspect of the set-up that went along with this was that the film was being shown on a wall that was placed in the centre of the room. The film can only viewed from going around the wall to the back where it is being projected. This allows the viewer to not only to see the film but also the door from which they entered, and consequently they can have a double view of both the departing character on the wall and other visitors leaving the gallery.
John Cage’s exhibition at Frith Street Gallery ‘Lecture on the Weather’ is a fairly beautiful one, as per by our ol’ pal John. The show is owes itself to Henry David Thoreau and his famous book ‘Walden; or Life in the Woods’. John Cage was devoted to Henry David Thoreau and for ‘Lecture on the Weather’, Cage drew excerpts from Thoreau’s classic texts, which he then cast into a score using I Ching-derived chance operations; additionally, each score was intermittently graced with chance-determined fragments of Thoreau’s nature drawings, which were to be interpreted as music, in the manner of graphic notation. At the start, Cage delivers a softly polemic prelude, and when the readings and musical realisations commence, so also begins a slowly escalating weather soundscape created by Maryanne Amacher. The work culminates with a film by Luis Frangella: Thoreau’s elemental nature drawings, now stark white on black, simulating flashes of lightning on a dark and stormy night. All of the elements – speech, music, film, lighting, and weather – combine to create a stunningly sensorial experience. A lovely idea, produced in a thoughtful manner, again, as per.
