Goldsmiths had their Fine Art degree show private view this week and we walked away fairly disappointed. Perhaps it was due to the amount of work on show and excitement/energy compared with how few things really caught our attention. However, there were a couple of pieces that did stick in our minds. The first of which was a series of videos by Hollie Bird employing the video game Sims. It’s difficult not to find the idea and aesthetic of the game appealing. An attempted simulation of life which is a mere shadow of its complexity is a truly thought provoking thing; who decides on these human traits? Why are certain behaviours more evident than others? How important is the way we behave as a child when thinking about the future? All these questions are brought up by the gae by in a ‘lite’ format, almost like a trial for the one shot we all get. Returning to Hollie Bird’s films, she has somehow modified the game and removed the green diamond and control panel from the screen, increasing the similarities between watching this and a live action film. The most interesting shots are probably ones of the scenery, eg a child’s dollhouse, with the Sims background noise playing in a similar fashion to that of a radio. Click >>>here<<< to go to her Vimeo channel to see the rest of her work.
The other piece that made us pause was Ben and Adam Wells’ collaborative performance work. It involved 3 participants, wearing transparent clothing, going between two tiled pools and meticulously cleaning these water lettuces with ear buds and then placing each earbud onto the windowsill in uniform fashion. It made us feel almost uncomfortable to watch, it seemed like quite an intimate exchange, one that might usually might happen behind closed doors. Purity was a clear theme they were working with, from the see-through clothing, to the bright white space, it was all contributing to an attempt to gain freedom from contamination. Their respective websites are >>>here<<< and >>>here<<<.
Next up was the Chelsea degree show which we actually found much more exciting. Perhaps it wa because of the architecture of the space; lots of smaller rooms as opposed to fewer bigger more open spaces. Either way we were able to find much more work we wanted to spend time with. One of our favourite was Rachel Mukendi’s ‘JUNGLE: The Reunion’, a film which acts as a post-show style discussion about a reality TV program similar to the notorious ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here’. The reason it was so engaging was that it used these fairly humorous contemporary ideas to talk about how we’re constantly surrounded by narratives, political or other, truths are being questioned, images are being appropriated and displaced. A very thorough critique of these narratives by using pop culture and appropriation. Her youtube channel is >>>here<<<.
Louis Judkins turfed an entire room, and was showing a pretty insane film where at one point he becomes a newsreader and discusses some fictional ‘Art News’ about an artists who was made out to sound incredibly shocking. This seemed to be a lot of what was going on in the film; pornographic imagery, mistreatment of animals and other various attempts to shock an audience. If his suggestion is in line with Grayson Perry’s claim that art can no longer shock then we would be inclined to agree. His vimeo channel can be found >>>here<<<.
There was an amazing carpet produced by Emma Ha along with some other very well thought out pieces with equally considered titles. The carpet being ‘Mosaic for Office’ and the piece next to it is ‘Crowd Control in Fresh Forest’. These give a lovely insight into the intention behind the works; office environments not being the most lively or ‘sunny’ and then some how by applying imagery of a tree, this brutal object used to control is now one which is about something natural such as a forest. Objects waiting for many interpretations, always a positive. Her website is >>>here<<<
Finally, a genuinely incredible and praiseworthy work was a escape-pod-meets-tanning-booth-meets-futuristic-bunker by Tom Ribot. The door was fitted with hydraulic cylinders and inside was a padded one person chair. Unfortunately the queue was too long for us to be able to get to see the film which was being shown on the inside but we thought it was worth a mention anyway since it was such an amazing thing to look at! A full low down can be seen at his website >>>here<<<
