Whilst we are watching our chosen programme the presenter would say the words ‘Don’t go Anywhere’. This suggests that we stay situated, therefore watching what is provided to us all as commercial visual imagery.
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Companies try to sell an idea, concept, we focus, deliberate on how it could be significance amongst our mundanity.
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Adverts have a dedicated time slot, we can choose to switch over, then we are confronted with another bit of visual information, we switch over again, and again until what was an initial choice, becomes an experience of being in the hub of mass production.
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The words Don’t go Anywhere applies we would right back, or do we leave? Instead, the title mimics the real experience in the home shown on the stage as the audience become trapped within their own realities. We sit down on the sofa, confronted with choice suggested by the artist, at first becomes an array of the different visual idea, however as the audience can change each channel, we are overwhelmed with the same bit of information, embedded amongst each other as an edited hard cut.
We can’t go anywhere, indeed the stage acts as the platform for performing our own domestic rituals- trapped by choice and by one’s position to leave the stage hoping we don’t miss anything.
Above shows an array of all the videos presented on the television set. Here composed on rapid transitions. During the installation instead carefully edited as a pattern of hard cuts, by which the changing of every channel shows a new footage for about 2 seconds, then we are soon consumed with the previous image on the channel we just departed. The audience is left in a dilemma of no escape, it soon becomes apparent of what we thought was something new, instead is a reflection of how we can't escape the mass of imagery from our choices.
The artist attempts the comment of the making of television idents, which are only 10-second footage which exits as a commision to showcase a popular branded channel. Displaying this set of videos within the exhibition space presented within an imagined living room interior creates a familiarity for the public. Usual surroundings and suggestings provided by the artist allows the audience to perform usual rituals, reenacting their own lives on the stage.
On Display at John Lennon Art and Design Building
4 Meters x 2 Meters
Sofa, Television Set, Rug, Shelf, Television Stand, Lamp, Flowers, Series of 9 Videos
August 2018
The installation is set up in the same layout as a living room interior. The audience is invited to set up onto the stage and choose from an array of video works presented by the artist. The concerns with the installation are to let the audience act out their own realities of domesticity, the stage being the main platform to engage the public walking around the art exhibition to witness the performance whilst the public on stage can act in the performance.
The series of videos shown on the television set create a distinction between how ourselves view commercial imagery in our homes, then represented on the television screen within the gallery. The audience acting out their own existence on the stage lets them question this past time. Presenting a fabrication of a living room interior with a series of videos shoot commenting on consumer imagery and consumer showroom space.
Setting the installation as a minimal living room space creates an association to house room show displays. Whether we are performing on the stage or the spectators we see all the elements as a fabrication to a consumer living room interior or what is being watched on the screen as repeated television imagery.
