Saturday, 19 January 2013

Live Blog from New Projects Weekend (6)


There are two rooms to the installation in The Art School. One has music, and is full of people chatting and drinking beer. It has the atmosphere of an opening of an exhibition. I am sitting in the other room, wishing I could get an Internet signal, dreaming of the love of my life, and surrounded by dry ice.
A description in the style of visual art critics of a few years back, when the nervousness about understanding the concept led critics to merely relate what they saw, not its emotional impact: the room is rectangular, the walls painted white; dry ice hangs in the air, while two mobiles hang from the ceiling; a project from the corner onto the flat wall, passing through one of the mobiles, which is a glitter pyramid in a Perspex box.
The impact is calming. The music and conversation bleeds from the next room, muted and relaxed. The projection is abstract patterns, kites in an artificially blue sky or shadows against a window frame. The dry ice wreathes mobiles and air, making the focus loose and the hard edges of the mobile, even the shadows they cast, are softened.
It’s not a pyramid in the Perspex box, but an eight sided solid. But it still glitters.
In the other room, the chat is getting louder and there is a row of lights hanging from the ceiling – bare bulbs that flash on and off, some red some clear. That is more sinister. I prefer the safety of my room. The projection has a green hue.
This is a pleasant chill out zone after the rigours of the music.
Now, in the main bar of The Art School, a video of hot dogs with subtitles. I think it's subliminal advertising because I am getting hungry.


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