Bad Pinch Rollers - MA Degree show at City and Guilds of London Art School 2021
Doccumentation of Bad Pinch Rollers 2021
Thank you for journeying through the show, for your eyes and attention.
For this show, I foregrounded the figure of the glitch as a philosophical notion, as an awakener, which is ever-changing, an accident that might help in evolution. (Bad pinch rollers cause tapes to a glitch). Throughout the show, there are elements of connecting and disconnecting, of play and discovery, of weight and weightlessness, of softness and hardness, of light and shadow. There are reflections and various speeds. A 14-minute soundtrack of a conglomeration of overlapping field recordings taken from 'becoming spaces' the night club, the building site and the darkroom as well as the processes that were involved in the making of the work. The smell of pine essential oil and seaweed mixed with cassette tape reference the bronze Sculpture and armbands. I consider how a body navigates its way through space, as Erin Manning says, “crafting holes to create a movement through” A type of circular nomadism is encouraged, a term coined by Edouard Glissant. Though of course, the work is autobiographical, it now exists in another time and space. Upon entering the space, the ground beneath your feet is made apparent, tactile concrete paving slabs made from darkroom developing trays form a corporeal code. Although here we are not stopping at the lights, we are moving through. Another form of code is made apparent on the ceiling, walls and floor, vinyl glyph stickers inspired by various walks are dispersed in the space. A deconstructed radio corpse is suspended and semi levitating from the ceiling, contained in a water pipe bent into a circle, it wants to float completely but gravity is holding most of it down, its shadows form a constellation on the ceiling. It's both pointless and playful, patient, frustrating and disappointing. Close by a bronze triangle mountain that was once a tree, sits on a steel plinth on wheels, with the shadow of itself underneath. 'Tig Mig' is a gnarly welded structure that holds three Ipads displaying a variety of stop-motion videos, some of which contains the objects displayed in the room, two of them move at a frantic speed while the one in the middle is snail-paced slow, a guilded plate sits on a concrete car park reflecting clouds moving. On the wall 'Ro' is a collapsed silicone poem on mushroom skin displayed on a copper bar, it could be mistaken for a towel or an animal. On the floor a piece of transparent perspex leans against the wall and on it rests several radio ariels lined up in various angles, waiting, for what? Beside it is a metal ball. Up a deconstructed shadow poem of a storm printed on tracing paper which moves as you move past it. What is it, what was it? does it even matter anymore? it's now asemic writing and this is a form of glitch writing. On the centre of the floor, a rectangle polished aluminium trolly holds a dark room light campfire with ariels, a flipbook of one of the videos, and five cast glass cassettes. But the eye is quickly led away to a standing piece, a sort of character, twisted re- bars form a medieval gothic-like claw which holds two cast glass solid armbands, with brass nozzles and a gold kitchen sink chain. A third armband sits on the ground on its own, sulking. On the wall are vinyl stickers of the cassette tape, which blend into the structure when you stand at a certain place in the room.