Blackcurrant, Plum & Blackberry by Jacob Wittaker

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E215 by Scott Willis

As a filmmaker, I get excited by the process of retrieving materials from the idea of an objective reality, similar to found object art. An absurd reality that does not have a structure. It is the deconstruction of those findings within the films post-production that excites me; new meanings emerge and the world becomes more intriguing.

When editing I get a comfort from the delusion that I am able to make sense of it all by directing narratives. You are able to strip down a physical world and allow an ethereal form to take over. I am told the act of meditation provides similar results and is more cost effective?

As my work process is derived from the idea of retrieving materials and treating film as if it were sculpture. My films have mainly been focused on objects and the people they come into contact with.

E215 began by observing a fridge that was abandoned in a disused quarry pool. I felt that the object floated with a sense of elegance, ignoring that it was decaying and was no longer suitable for its primary function. I realised that the fridge stuck to a daily routine and could be located at specific spots of the pool at certain times. This allowed me to plan shots to showcase its individuality.

I made E215 at art school while I lived with my gran. Did you just snigger at me?
Incorporating audio from a conversation we had, the films visuals then evolved into her psychological landscape. She was unaware I was recording so the audio feels intimate, not forced and very much her.

E215 is an insight into a meditative space where a woman reflects on her physical self change. Overall the film highlights that there is still life and beauty to be obtained from entities often left behind.

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Baby Marleena by Erica Eyres

My work is primarily concerned with narrative, and is realised through series of drawings, videos, and sculptures. Frequently borrowing from the aesthetics of low-budget television, my videos centre around narratives based on my own family or people I have known, and are re-told by exploiting elements of storytelling to create works of fiction that allude to the personal. The stories’ biographical fallacy is then furthered by the use of a stand-in narrator, whose presence contributes to a mechanism that I refer to as “the estranged voice.”

Related to Bertolt Brecht’s “distancing effect”, the estranged voice describes a narrator who reveals an unexpected detachment from the story they present. This process of estrangement allows me to complicate the viewer’s understanding of the author’s subjective truth and to problematise the notion of the ‘autobiographical’. The use of dark humour is also significant to my practice, as it enables me to create points of entry for otherwise off-putting stories, and to subvert the act of storytelling.

The Male Epidemic is a news broadcast that follows the progress of a fatal disease that is wiping out the world’s male population. The video features interviews with “experts” and one of the last living men.

Baby Marleena documents a day in the life of Tamarra and her daughter, Baby Marleena. The Baby Marleena is, what is commonly known as, a mermaid, and therefore must be kept in water at all times. For this reason, Tamarra has kept Baby Marleena in a full bathtub for her whole life, preventing her from suffocating and dying. For the last two years, Tamarra has been taking Baby Marleena onto the road, bringing her to different hotels across the nation, and opening the doors to the public. The visitors are charged a small amount of money and they are allowed to stand in the bathroom doorway to experience the miracle of Baby Marleena.

Imaginary Girlfriend is based loosely on 1980s family sitcoms, and features a boy named Steven and his imaginary girlfriend Amanda. Steven is constantly tormented by Amanda, being asked to do things that leave him in embarrassing situations. Simultaneously, the video reveals the suffocating and inappropriate relationship between Steven and his mother.

Pam’s Dream is based on an episode of the 1980s television show Dallas, and features child actors in the roles. The video is inspired by the season 8 finale of Dallas in which Pam Ewing awakes to find that all recent events, starting with the death of her husband Bobby, were merely a dream…though seemingly “so real”.

In Autobiography II, tightly framed images of the museum’s dioramas assume an ambiguous quality that alludes to a film set or some otherworldly site. The video’s narrative follows the course of human evolution, beginning with early forms of under-water life, moving towards dinosaurs, mammals, and eventually humans. At this point, the mannequins devolve to become abstract.

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Collaborative duo Rachel McBrinn and Alison Piper have created an enchanting site-specific video installation in one of 24 disused vaults on East Market Street, Edinburgh, where the Hidden Door Festival goes out with a bang this Saturday night. Tucked away towards the quiet end of the street, Vault 3 beholds ‘A Lower Volume’, a mesmeric video projection onto a semi-circular end wall, which meets its mirror image in the dark water below to create a circular moving image that illuminates the otherwise pitch-black space.

Rachel McBrinn (23) is a visual artist working predominantly with lens-based media and installation. Her work is concerned with the real and perceived real, often seeking to present an illusory experience of a physical or pictorial space. Rachel will be graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in June 2014.

Alison Piper (26) graduated from The Northern Film School in 2009 and started off working in sound, she is now based in Edinburgh and works in the UK film industry as a freelance assistant director. Since discovering the Hidden Door arts collective in 2011, she has developed a keen interest in the fine art side of filmmaking. This is her second project with the Edinburgh based grassroots collective.

AP: The idea for our installation was very much dictated by the space we were given to work in. Rachel submitted the proposal to Hidden Door back in October last year and it was David Martin (Hidden Door founder) who suggested that we collaborate for this project. I have a background in filmmaking, whereas Rachel comes from fine art, so we both have different strengths and approaches, but we’re on the same page creatively.

RM: The initial proposal outlined a format for the space, projecting onto a semi-circular screen and using a mirrored floor to create a cylindrical illusion. Hidden Door was offering up such a unique opportunity to use the vaults in this way, the idea was to create a site specific installation that would really exploit their physical form. When we began discussing ideas for the visuals, we were very open-minded in terms of content but mindful of the limitations of this format, finding movements and compositions that worked well within the reflected semi-circular frame.

Alison filming by the river Avon

We filmed the exterior scenes at Muiravonside Country Park, and the interior at my studio in Edinburgh College of Art. We basically had a stock of lights, glass objects, pipes, and liquids, and we filmed versions of these elements until it worked. Alison even made a contraption which stuck on the front of the camera with funnels and clips, so we could pour liquids in a controlled way. The interplay of liquid and light became the real focus of the project, both in the video and in the installation.

AP: After picture lock we turned our attention to sound, and although we recorded a lot of wild tracks during filming, everything we played with the video seemed too heavy. It was at that point that we decided to start from scratch and design our audio with a similar approach that we had to the visual, spending a few weekends wandering the streets of Edinburgh with our mini Zoom H1 and a series of spoons, spatulas, brushes, pins and soft materials that we could use to sonically engage with our surroundings. We love that it’s not immediately obvious what you’re seeing or listening to, and if you’d encountered us out and about working you’d probably think we were a couple of loonies, hanging out the back of M&S on Rose Street recording the sound of an extractor fan. That’s another reason why collaborating has been so great, it’s much easier to put yourself in these situations when there are two of you.

Rachel constructing the screen. Photo by Kat Gollock

RM: The installation for the project was far more technically ambitious than anything either of us has worked on before. The vault is an extraordinary space but every surface is curved and uneven so there really aren’t any reference points, which was extremely challenging given the nature of our installation. Our projector screen was made in four sections, which were slotted together before being fixed to the concave back wall of the vault. The sides of the pool were made individually on site, cut to fall flush with the vault’s uneven floor. It was a pretty eventful install, Alison pulled a favour with a friend in the fire brigade to fill the pool. It took 3600 litres of water, coloured with black pond dye, to fill the space.

Read more about their installation on the Hidden Door blog.

Hidden Door festival runs until 5 April 2014. 12-6pm FREE, 6-10pm ticketed.

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Artistic Director of the 19th Biennale of Sydney, Juliana Engberg has revealed details for the Asia Pacific’s largest contemporary visual arts event, to be presented free to the public from 21 March until 9 June 2014 at five venues across Sydney.

With more than 90 artists from 31 countries, Engberg commented at an event held at the Sydney Opera House: “At its heart, the 19th Biennale of Sydney celebrates the power of artistic imagination. You Imagine What You Desire is an optimistic biennale that presents an exploration of the world and contemporary aesthetic experience through the inventions and desires of well-known artists, as well as many exhibiting in Sydney for the first time.”

Marah Braye, Chief Executive Officer, Biennale of Sydney added: “Juliana Engberg is curating a much-anticipated exhibition that will be remembered by audiences for many years to come. We are thrilled to be working with a group of exceptional artists, many of whom are developing new projects especially for Sydney.”

In addition to the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), venues for the 19th Biennale of Sydney include two heritage-listed locations: Carriageworks, a former rail yard; and Cockatoo Island, a former prison and shipyard in Sydney Harbour. The 19th Biennale will also present works at Artspace and include several performative projects in Sydney’s CBD.

Inspired by the exhibition title You Imagine What You Desire, Scottish artist Nathan Coley is creating a new multi-venue work. Known for his thought-provoking text-based installations constructed from lights and scaffolding, Coley’s works will be installed at various Biennale locations across the city.

Eglé Budvytytė, Choreography for the Running Male, 2012, performance, 30 mins.

Areas of the city will be infiltrated during the Biennale’s opening weeks with a range of performative works and events designed to alter the sense of the everyday. Lithuanian artist Eglė Budvytytė will activate busy streets with her work, Choreography for the Running Male (2012–14), in which a group of men run through the city gesturing emotions ranging from shame to seduction.

Douglas Gordon, Phantom, 2011 (video still), stage, screen, black Steinway piano, burned Steinway piano, monitor, dimensions variable.

At the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, the double-height gallery space will feature a site-specific video installation by renowned Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist, commissioned especially for the 19th Biennale. Elsewhere at the MCA, the Biennale will feature the work of acclaimed Scottish artist Douglas Gordon, the first artist to win the Turner Prize in the field of video. Gordon will present a large-scale, mixed-media installation featuring the haunting voice of musician Rufus Wainwright. The dramatic installation, Phantom (2011), takes the audience on a rapturous journey. Darkness and light, tragedy, and salvation through redemptive love are the ideas and emotions encountered here.

In 2014, the Biennale takes over the newly expanded space at Carriageworks, with works that explore the language, materials and narratives of the theatre and film worlds from which contemporary artists take inspiration for reinvention.

Artists at Carriageworks include Austrian artist Mathias Poledna; Israeli-born Yael Bartana; and Dutch artist Gabriel Lester. Working on a new commission and large-scale work, Lester will speak to the cinematic and its penchant for seductive illusion using modelling techniques and the unique architectural interior of the space. The Biennale of Sydney and Carriageworks will also co-present the world premiere of a new work by celebrated British artist Tacita Dean.

Artspace returns as a venue partner for the 19th Biennale, presenting work from artists including Ugo Rondinone, Maxime Rossi and Henna-Riikka Halonen.

See the full list of exhibiting artists here.

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The Glasgow School of Art Fine Art Degree Show 2013 opens tomorrow. Central Station was given a sneak peek at the work on display. The Sculpture and Environmental Art Department was particularly strong this year and across the board, there was an evident trend in exploring materials. Here is a selection of work that really stood out:

Ruth Switalski

Switalski’s series of works explore the body. A huge high gloss digital print triptych initially emanates a sense of serenity as you enter the main gallery in the Mackintosh Building. It shows stills of the body taken from a digital film, printed, then scanned into the computer, blown up and printed again. Up close, you notice the pixelation in the images, hairs on the scan and discolouration, all of which reflect the imperfections of the body.

Rachel Levine

Levine uses objects as signifiers for Western histories. She successfully balances conceptual ideas with craftsmanship in casting replicas of objects. Her installation revels in contrasting materials; polished marble sits alongside rough textiles and plaster casts.

Rosie O’Grady

After a short discussion with O’Grady, the ideas behind Camellemac become instantly amusing. In 1907, the art school allowed a camel from Hengler’s Circus (located on Sauchiehall Street at the time) into the building to be drawn by students. In an historical re-enactment, O’Grady somehow convinced the powers that be to allow a camel into the listed Mackintosh Building once again. Simon Starling came to mind when watching her work… not because he ever used camels, but because he is also interested in reviving history (as in his current exhibition, Phantom Ride at Tate Britain).

Mikey Cook

Cook’s work looks at the fabrication of simultaneously fictional and factual alternate realities. The optical illusions on the walls and plinths reference Roman floor mosaics and have a kind of hypnotising affect.

Sophie King

Sophie King’s work shows evidence of its own making. At first glance, the colourful objects appear to have been discarded from a toy shop. However, upon closer inspection, you realise the basic mechanisms of photography have been carved out.

Gao Muyan

Strength versus fragility is explored in Muyan’s installation. Her contrasting materials (steel, cement, plaster) and elements of the work (multiple cast hands against solid cement blocks) symbolise this contradiction.

Julia Wylie

Wylie’s work is strongly reminiscent of Anya Gallaccio’s Red on Green at Jupiter Artland. Both represent beautiful floral installations laid out on the floor. The main difference is that Wylie seems to be trying to preserve the petals on the floor with some kind of wax or powder, whereas Gallaccio’s work is concerned with observing the natural decay process.

Kenneth Law

Kenneth Law’s installation consists of a 100 foot long piece of paper hanging from the ceiling which is surrounded by more strips of paper. Lines including “I never promised anyone anything” are repeated down the papers. The lines have all been taken from TV scripts and Law questions the moralities of these shows in his work.

Culloden Robertson

Robertson asks: “Can we still appreciate a painting today if it is primarily a thing of representation and beauty?” Influenced by artists such as Boucher and Fragonard, Robertson stood out as she explores the value of an image’s content versus Greenberg’s more abstract ideologies. This is quite a brave thing to do in a school famed for its alumni of well-known conceptual artists.

Other notable works are highlighted below:

Amy Pickles

Grace Johnston

Hannah Roberts

Robert Hunter

Todd Pleasants

The Glasgow School of Art Fine Art Degree Show runs from 8 – 15 June at the Mackintosh Building, 167 Renfrew Street, Glasgow, G3 6RQ. The Design Degree Show is at Skypark Campus, 45 Finnieston Street, Glasgow, G3 8JU.

Written by Kim Stewart

Recently I’ve been working towards a 3-minute video for Channel 4 Random Acts. The piece was commissioned by Bold Yin, a newly formed Glasgow based production company, created by Robert Florence, Iain Connell and Joanne Daly and doing all sorts of work in and around the film, art and comedy genres.

Here is a still of me with a ‘Miracle Mask’ facemask on. I had to direct the dialogue at a C-stand in order that I matched the correct eye-line for when the second character was composited in post.

Random Acts invite artists and filmmakers from a whole host of backgrounds to make videos which are then screened in amongst the normal Channel 4 schedule of programmes and advert breaks. In turn, unlike most previous projects I’ve worked towards, the end context for the work is not strictly within the sphere of fine art or film, as telly watchers could stumble upon the video involuntarily and without the normal preface you get in a gallery or cinema.

I decided to explore an advert style format, in anticipation of the video being screened either at the beginning or the end of a commercial break. I was keen that it might initially camouflage into the stream of ads, but then break down and slowly reveal itself to be a fraud. As a genre, commercials adhere to very specific tropes and I was eager to pick these out and play around with them. In particular I was drawn to the recurrent use of faux scientific cross-sections or magnifications of skin, hair, stomachs, toilet bowls etc. Often showing sterile looking, computer generated particles being swept in or out of the respective area, illustrating the cleansing and/or nourishing properties of a particular product. In many cases there is the implication that the comfort and safety of your personal space, either the body or the home, is secretly threatened by the habitation of destructive microscopic forces, whether they are ‘free-radicals’ in your skin or bacteria in your toilet.

Here I am in the ‘germ’ costume, dancing to the ‘Mr Mask Multi-Task Germ Destroyer’ jingle.

Additionally, I was interested in looking at how accents and their class connotations are used as a way to communicate a particular brand identity. For example, bathroom-cleaning adverts are almost invariably voiced-over in an authoritative middle class male accent, often with a shouty, wartime British twang, as if implying that the extermination of toilet based dirt and grime is part of some larger military operation. However, the personified ‘germs in your toilet’, when vocal, are commonly Cockneys, addressing you with an aggressive or intimidating tone of voice.

After a long trawl through various adverts, new and old, I decided to create a short video that switched between a variety of commercial formats, specifically looking at perfume, facemask, yogurt and bathroom cleaner ads. I designed all the products and costumes so they would have a similar aesthetic, with brand names related to the word and function of a ‘mask’. So ‘Masque’ for the perfume, ‘Yogi-Mask’ for the yogurt, ‘Miracle Mask’ for the facemask and ‘Mr Mask’s Multi Task Germ Destroyer’ for the toilet cleaner. I then began to script, piece together a storyboard and work on costumes, part of which was produced during a short residency at the Mackintosh Gallery, called Three Points of Contact.

Here is me preparing to vomit up a ‘Yogi-mask’ yogurt. Below is the same shot with the green-screen keyed out and the background added in.

I normally work with found audio that I mime to on camera, but in this case I was keen to explore the idea of scripting the piece then recording the audio. I worked with Kirsty Strain, a Glasgow based actress to record the vocals, which involved her performing the script in a variety of accents, from Scarlett Johansson to a ‘shouty Margaret Thatcher’. Her performance was brilliant, incredibly witty and well observed and I was amazed by her ability to switch between different voices. I also worked with Julian Corrie or Miaoux Miaoux on the audio, which was great fun. He did a brilliant job and produced an amazingly funny toilet cleaner jingle for the end section of the film.

The video was shot entirely in a green-screen studio with me as the only actor, miming to the audio recorded with Kirsty and Julian the previous week. The 2-day shoot followed a manic and sleepless few days of costume and prop production, so I was pretty exhausted and confused. However, I just about managed to pull of an improvised dance routine in a life-size ‘germ’ costume, which was constructed using the contents of 2.5 double duvets. Consequently, the suit was so amazingly insulating that I was concerned I might pass out from heat exhaustion, so had to aim a fan into my face at intervals to cool down.

This is a close up of me as a crowd of germs in your toilet.

David Liddell worked as Director of Photography on the shoot and did a fantastic job, the quality and subtlety of light in the shots was wonderfully effective. Producer Joanne Daly and Assistant Director James Houston also put in an amazing effort during the production, despite both being ill at the time and unfortunately landed with various glamorous jobs such as cleaning a second hand toilet and dragging a faux fur couch through a narrow doorway. James had the specialist task of creating a fake blood spray effect for a scene in the video where a giant germ attacks the main character with a cleaning product. This was achieved through the use of a weed killer spray bottle and plastic tubing, which was good fun, if not slightly nerve racking given my worry that both me and the entire green-screen could easily be inadvertently sprayed with synthetic blood. This didn’t happen, so we were safe.

Following the shoot I put together some backgrounds on Photoshop and with James’ help on the green-screen keying, composited it all together on After Effects and did the final edit and output on Premiere.

Computer generated visualisation of the ‘Happy Bacteria’ in your gut.

It was a really fun project to work on and I’m looking forward to seeing the final video screened on Channel 4 and up on the Random Acts website soon. Keep an eye out and follow the links below if you are interested.

Update: View Rachel’s Random Acts film online here.

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‘Where I Make’ invites readers behind the scenes of artists from many disciplines to share photographs and a little insight about where they create their masterpieces. See more from the series here.

Three Points of Contact Residency (TPCR) Photo by Saule Zukaityte

Being asked to take part in the residency as a former student of GSA (undergrad/MFA) was a bizarre fantastic challenge. I don’t have a studio. I do performance. I don’t need one. I don’t really know what to do in them apart from making hippy tea and trying my best to annoy the crap out of other people. But the appeal to venture back into the Mac building and use that as a ‘studio’ was far too tempting not to of taken part. I’ll admit I never liked the Building as a 1st year student (red haired 18 year old, in black, mildly depressed). It was dark, oppressive and occasionally reminiscent of the Goblin King’s castle in Labyrinth… you know Bowie fiddling with balls… that bit with all the stairs.

TPCR Photo by Saule Zukaityte

With that in mind the first few days I done bloody nothing. It felt like being back at school. My mind as ever floats around like a cloud and as a result I took more notice of the building. The staff. The janitors. The students. The cleverness of Mackintosh. Clever bastard. Though indeed I was still going up the wrong flight of stairs as per usual and ending up in the backarse of an office I clearly shouldn’t of wandered into. But it was starting to be nice to wander about (annoy Jenny mostly) to see what the other (proper) artists were up to. I took Megan to the glory of the Savoy Centre. Great to chat to the coolest lady this side of Sleazys… Rafla about her work and secretly stare at the frightening wonderful talent that is Rachel Maclean. Not in a pervy way. I had never met Mark Vernon before but ended up performing a soundwork in his ‘lightsoutlisteninggroup’ thing. A revelation to perform in the dark. TAap of course tore right into it and exploded with ink, found books and lamp shades/sleeping bags as costume thingys. Stuart Gurden is a secret scientist I think and Von Calhau too are obviously from space and/or a Kenneth Anger film.

TPCR Photo by Saule Zukaityte

I realised that I might have to do something.

I do performances. I do sound. I make cosmic photographs of sexy statues, animals and most usually my face. Unlike a lot of artists in Glasgow I put myself in work. I’m not shying away from it. So I would aim for that during the Residency. Learn new songs. Paint my face golden & glitter, dress up in an evening gown, swan about and become the ‘other’… Its not an alter ego that I’m creating now as was the case in my past work. Its ‘self design’. A concept even, an anxiety that forces one—to confront the image of the self: to correct, to change, to adapt, to contradict this image. We all come under aesthetic evaluation. Of sorts. Movie stars, politicians, facebook profile pictures, bank managers, strippers, terrorists, call centre workers and even us… dear artists. Even those simple unknown tokens of untied shoelaces, tattoos, dirty nails, haircuts and the colour and form of shirts/pants/shoes and teeth signify to the world who and what we are.

TPCR Photo by Saule Zukaityte

A performative identity through the image of the self.

I have developed a strong discourse of Romanticism in my practice and over the past year this has revealed itself from the founding constructs of Cabaret -that is its original purpose to engage, entice and repulse equally in artifice, by using its theatrical beginnings to revolve around a feminized identity in terms of the ‘femme fatale’ or exotic other. Avoiding like hell the ‘live art’ area, dodgy office girl Burlesque and the nonsense of Suicide Girls and Agent Provocateur. They’ll be no getting them out in my work. No.Way.

I (try) to do this by means of vocal performances of appropriated, fragmented songs (chosen for their tokens of masculinity such as Black Hole Sun, Sympathy for the Devil, How Soon is Now etc… basically songs for depressed ostracised teenagers) I sing these with a soundtrack in electronic vein of Laurie Anderson with the sprinkling of the gender bending boundaries of Genesis P- Orridge, Linder and Kalup Linzy. I wear manga contacts, I paint my hair, I wear customised evening gowns in the most Twin Peakism format, I become metallic, ethereal, vocal and ultimately hopefully emotive.

Artspeak over. One day on the second week, I painted my face gold and glitter. It looked amazing. I felt cosmic. I thought I could be the Thin White Duke finally. (NO chance) I’ve started to experiment with stage spotlights. Simple and completely stolen from Lynch of course… so I set up the red light in the temporary darkspace and filmed.

SONNE film still by Michelle Hannah

This became SONNE. A distilled cover of How Soon is Now. My face golden as if staring into the last flickers of a dying star. I change lyrics for my own means. For some godly reason over the past year or so I have become obsessed by the omnipotent force of light. All light. Be it metaphysical, natural, artistic, man made or not. Instead of “Son and Heir” in Morrisey’s vocal pain, this is now ‘I am the Sun and Air”. Ironic really, that I am actually allergic to the Sun…

I made this in a day. It scared me how easy it was. It shouldn’t be that easy. But the wonderful thing about the challenge of this residency (2 weeks, 11-5 everyday) was that it forced me to open up and try things out that I usually would spend just 2 weeks thinking about. Worrying about if folk will accept it. Being on trend. I realise now, to hell with other folk… just embrace what you do and go and bloody do it.

HOW DOES IT FEEL performance photo by Saule Zukaityte

I also done another performance at the closing event. ‘HOW DOES IT FEEL’ In a blue blue electric blue of light. A simple blue spotlight going on and off. I in black costume lamenting… over the distilled New Order song. I liked doing that one. I think other people did too.

I showed Jenny the video. She said it was beautiful.

I think I done well.

Read more about the Residency from The Glasgow Schoool of Art Exhibitions Director, Jenny Brownrigg here.

Where to find out more:
Website

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With this in mind I was curious to see Kim Coleman and Jenny Hogarth’s installation at the City Observatory on Calton Hill, produced by Collective as part of Edinburgh Art Festival. Staged explores precisely that sense of the uncanny, in a setting which is slightly removed from the city, raised up and looking down on it from afar. On entering the Observatory you pull back a heavy cloth curtain and step into a small square room. Projected on each wall are a series of videos which are intermittently removed and replaced with new images. It’s unclear who is controlling them and they come and go in an irregular pattern. Looking closely some appear to be taken from cameras just outside the building and some seems to be CCTV footage, but is it in real time or is it delayed? And are these ‘real’ people or actors?

There are so many fascinating discussions that come from this work (which I barely have space to touch on here): performance in the digital world; the fluid nature of identity especially with the arrival of social media; voyeurism; our desire for entertainment… the list goes on. Staged seems like the perfect piece to present in Edinburgh during the Festival madness and I found it an intellectually rich work to contemplate.

The one gripe I have is that I felt the execution of the exhibition didn’t quite rise to the level of the themes it was exploring. Perhaps it’s just my film background but I was lusting for a giant expansive space where such huge themes could be explored. I ended up chatting to a friend for a good half an hour in the exhibition space about completely unrelated matters, without the images catching my attention or drawing me away from my chatter. Then again, maybe this in itself says something about how we interact and relate to such footage – our immunity to images, our apathy at being watched and ultimately a lack of concern about the assimilation of performance and living.

Staged is on at the City Observatory until the 15 August 2010.