Playlist:

Material Change

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In this month's Playlist we present a selection of videos involving material change. Featuring: Ellie Doney, Pak Keung Wan, Chris Dunseath and Karen Wallis.

 


Ellie Doney, Slick of Joy, 2017

 

Terri's nans sauce

Olive oil or butter

Chopped onions and garlic

Lemon juice

Dried oregano

Salt and pepper

Tinned tomatoes

 

Check out Ellie's profile here

 


Pak Keung Wan, Untitled (for the apophatic), 2006 - 2007

 

Untitled (for the apophatic) was created in response to a commission from Fermynwoods Contemporary Art - a converted water tower, now a gallery space. There were points of departure between my practice and the liquid identity of the gallery's past.

For four years prior I had been carrying out a series of actions that involved reading out loud particular books into a jar and collecting the breath (in its condensed form) that resulted from this action. These substances are now stored in my studio, uncertain as to how to proceed. The catalyst for this commission draws from an experience I had in India where I heard a recording of a devotee speaking aloud the one thousand names that denote the elephant headed god Ganesh. I saw in this action a way of arriving at a more fundamental understanding of this deity by saying what he is not, identifying god in terms of absence, otherness, through the formless.

Here, I spent seven nights speaking aloud, into a specially blown glass vessel, a procession of words that came into my head, until I could say no more. The condensed breath that emanated from this action was collected by the vessel and stored. Later, this breath was filmed as a series of splashes through a high speed 16mm film camera running at 4000 frames per second.

Within the top floor of the water tower this film was projected onto the walls in slow motion, a series of liquid forms arising out of an act - towards wordlessness, a draining of chatter, towards a silence.

A consistent theme running through my work is this idea of personal enlargement, of swelling out; out from the breath I envisaged an ocean, through the contained touch upon the void. I saw in the substance and physicality of film a medium that was able to transform the body and site into the phenomenal.

 

Check out Pak's profile here

 


Chris Dunseath, Corrosive Beauty, 2015

 

An animated film influenced by the changes that occur when bronze age artefacts are buried in the ground. This four minute stop motion animation took two days to film. It was first screened at the exhibition 'New Dimensions: Contemporary Art Inspired by Hidden Objects' at The Museum of Somerset from 16th January to 16th April 2016.

 

Check out Chris' profile here

 


Karen Wallis, Ness of Brodgar, 2017

 

Following last year's successful residency on the Ness of Brodgar archaeological excavations in Orkney, this has now become a long term project in collaboration with the Ness of Brodgar Trust, beginning in mid July 2017. There will be an open studio on site where visitors can see work in progress and a series of Artist talks. An exhibition at the Orkney Museum until the end of September will show work from 2016. The aim is to investigate whether perceptual art can contribute to archaeological research - without being documentation or historical reconstruction.

 

Check out Karen's profile here