s e e i n g a r t i n l e e d s

We’ve taken a trip to Leeds and subsequently a couple of galleries big and small. First we went to serf, a small artist-run-space which has studios connected. Initially we were very excited by the show, it was described as the culmination of a two year project where the artist has collected the mail of the previous tenants from her flat and created fictional stories of a man and woman who lived there. However, it was a little too much of the artists interpretation of the tenants lives though sculpture than writing. This is obviously just a personal preference and perhaps we were comparing it too much to Alicja Kwade’s exhibition at Neuer Berliner, which is a series of letters that the artist copied then sent to a series of graphologists, people who analyse hand writing. Obviously more of a cosmetic link than a thematic one but we really enjoyed it.

Even though we had seen this show before, we felt it necessary to revisit Andy Holden’s touring Artangel show. It’s still just as good on a second viewing and it was good to see it restaged in a different venue. Really made us think about how location can redefine a work.

p l a n n i n g t h e f u t u r e

A couple of evening’s ago was another Isthisit book launch! Always an exciting time since the show it’s fairly certain the show will be a good one. The book is also consistently thorough and well-constructed. The show and book is all about surveillance, the monitoring and mediation of online/offline lives by corporations and government bodies accompanied by the monetising of one's personal and private data. Some favourite works would probably be the McDonalds knuckleduster, a great idea and a really beautiful object and the unattended bag, complete with a 3d printed Mark Zuckerberg head.

We’re in the process of getting ourselves a shared studio with a big group of friends which will be really exciting! Having a place to make art, come up with ideas, even a venue for social interaction will be good. Making work without anywhere to put it feels bizarre but having a studio feels like it almost makes that OK because it’s not just filling up your house with crap. We’ve found a space in crouch end so fingers crossed everything will go through and we can give this whole “artist” thing a shot and keep tinkering around and making stuff.

s u n n y l o n d o n s u n n y s h o w s

An amazing exhibition we would highly recommend visiting is at arbyte gallery. It’s a collaborative effort by Lawrence Lek and Kode 9 called Nøtel. The installation itself is an amazing spectacle; at the centre of the gallery four screens hang from a black metal structure placed in an Ø-shaped pit, outlined in green neon tubing. Two of these screens are attached to video-gaming consoles, the other two to virtual-reality headsets, each offering a different method of navigating the digital rendering of the Nøtel. Architectural drawings of the building (itself an Ø shape) are hung on columns, and an edited ‘trailer’ for the Nøtel is projected on to a larger screen on the back. The video is narrated by two robotic voices reciting the company’s ‘CEØ statement’ – also printed on a nearby wall: ‘Nøtel Corporation is proud to present our first marketing suite for the Nøtel, our flagship range of zero-star™ hotels that embody the concept of fully-automated luxury.’ It’s a truly stunning sight. 

Another show worth checking out is a new one at Auto Italia titled “Sister said to Satan: my diary is too hot for you”. There’s a variety of material; texts, posters, and four moving image works. Everything is exploring the allure of gods and legends, alternative belief systems and healing rituals, as well as trans-national tourism and ideas of destiny. The works also engage with the destructive forces of late capitalism on the body and city: from mental disorders that rupture and realign the self, to the intense depression and recession that tear apart the fabric of the city. This juxtaposition is treated half in reverie and half critically, producing a surreal exhibition where fact and fiction melt together in the heat, and remain unhinged in time and place. 

g o o d i d e a d o e s n ' t a l w a y s e q u a l g o o d a r t

We’ve seen the current exhibition by Banu Cennetoğlu at Chisenhale Gallery recently and had a couple of thoughts about it. The premise is that it’s the artists entire digital archive of images and films from all her devices, over the past 12 years. This is then put into one huge moving image work; 128 hours long. The idea is this allows viewers to build up a picture of the artist; who they are through what the decide to document. A lovely idea, one which we’ve seen before from the likes of Eva and Franco Mattes who produced Riccardo Uncut, an uncut and uncensored portrait of someone's life through their phone. Although, we kind of prefer Eva and Franco Mattes’ version because it feels much less self-obsessed; they are thinking about it with reference to another person, completely estranged from them and therefore it brings up questions like “how do we construct our digital memory?” and “is there still such a thing as a ‘private photo?”. It’s about building a character and the fact that private photos aren’t necessarily sexual or explicit. But Banu Cennetoğlu’s show feels much more indulgent and dull. Although, neither of the outcomes of these ideas are particularly exciting; merely a slideshow of images and videos. Better of as ideas.

Went to see Incredibles 2 and it was even better of the first one. It’s so clever and beautiful and continues to build upon the question of are super heroes actually a good thing but does it in a different way to the first one. In the first film we saw the challenges of middle-age for Mr. Incredible but then he realises that normalcy can be great and family is worth the sacrifice. The major evils are bureaucracy. 

Now we have superheroes are fighting back against them being illegal and we’re questioning whether the laws correct. Elastigirl engages in an act of civil disobedience by going back and doing superhero work, almost like a modern day Gandhi. The message then becomes, if you believe something is wrong then you are allowed to do something else wrong to change that wrong thing. The key is all about changing public perception of the superheroes which references the commercial world where if you come to a problem then all you have to do is re-brand. We see them operating in a post-truth world where there’s no good and bad, truth and lies but just what people believe. And in the end it’s another great message about parenting and how family is strong together. All summed up by a quote by Edna “done properly, parenting is a heroic act”.

a r t i s t s m a k e a r t

We’ve got back on our feet and we’re trying to start making some art again! There is a slight monetary barrier which means we’ve decided to not make art with our own money for a while and instead apply for commissions and residencies where there’s a budget (even if it’s purely for materials). We made an application to make a film about the legend of Saint Margaret. Our proposal was to tell St Margaret's story through audition tapes. We will film actors reading excerpts of their respective parts of the script. Using these screen tests we will edit them together to build a narrative where the progression of the story is cohesive but the delivery is down to the interpretation of the actors. This is a slightly edited version of another idea we’ve had for a film for a while but it does make sense with the subject matter because St Margaret's story has many subtly different versions and, as with all stories, even more interpretations. All renditions involve her warding off a dragon but not always via the same method. The piece proposed is a moving image work made up of a selection of audition tapes for a film about St Margaret's story. It will make use of these ideas in relation to narrative construction and interpretation. Fingers and toes crossed. 

The White Cube Masons Yard summer show is pretty weak. It felt boring and grand, massive works with no feeling or thought. Perhaps the Bermondsey section is more exciting… 

However, the Tenderpixel summer show was very fun and, as always, had a superb handout containing a conversation between a person and a plant.

b e r l i n b i e n n a l e n u m b e r 2

We’ve been away again and this time to the Berlin biennale! It wasn’t nearly as good as the previous one which we enjoyed massively due to DIS being the curators. The smaller show were fairly mediocre although we did see a really clever work by John Smith (although would you ever expect anything less?). The film is linked below and we won’t spoil it but it’s only four minutes long and dies a great job of exploring our response to stereotypes - aural, visual and ideological. Smith signals these stereotypes to the viewer through a chiefly associational system, which deftly manipulates the path of our expectations. The structure is stunningly simple and deceptively subtle. We are taken on a journey from one concrete stereotype to its diametric opposite, as images transform and juxtapose to, ultimately, invert our interpretation of what we see and hear. 

What we did find very impressive was the bigger museum shows such as Philippe Parreno’s amazing show at Gropius Bau. The whole exhibition was all one living organism that can be set in motion by light, sounds and images. The was very little focus on the individual object, but rather on the choreographed interaction between the various components. The application of chance principles allows the exhibition to develop and change over a certain period of time, so that the work comes to life and generates an eerie presence. Performative moments ensue; the objects produce something more than the sum of their parts – a choreography of absence and presence that challenges our knowledge of the simultaneity of things and their control. The exhibition is conceived as a synthesis of artistic disciplines. It was truly an experiential time and not one to be missed!

a r t a r o u n d t h e w o r l d

We’ve been away! We went to Lisbon and visited the MAAT while we were there. The collection that was on show in one of the buildings was super weak and very unengaging; 2-dimensional work in every sense, not even trying to be anything else. 

However, the exhibition titled Eco-Visionaries. Art, Architecture, and New Media after the Anthropocene was excellent! Had some familiar works in it which were fun to revisit such as the Superflex film where they flood a McDonalds.

And then also some new works such as ‘Western Flag (Spindletop, Texas)’, which is a work by John Gerrard and is a digital simulation of a flag perpetually-renewing pressurised black smoke and marks the site of the Lucas Gusher, the world’s first major oil find in 1901, in Spindletop, in the middle of the Texan desert. The computer generated Spindletop runs in exact parallel with the real site in Texas throughout the year: the sun rising at the appropriate times and the days getting longer and shorter according to the seasons. The simulation is run live by software that is calculating each frame of the animation in real time as it is needed. Western Flag symbolizes our reliance on oil. It’s everywhere, it is one of the forces behind climate change and yet it remains invisible.