Thinking About Installation

Had an excellent tutorial with Mel this afternoon, and as a result of it I have made a major decision regarding the work I intend to exhibit at the degree show. Although my practice has been based in painting for the last eighteen months, a whole new area has opened up since I started mediating the same ideas through electronic media; initially with Photoshop collages, and then taking them further by animating them & adding sound.

There is no doubt in my mind that both the collages and the animations are powerful pieces, [and this was proven in the recent cross-crit with Pil & Galia's group]; even when they were being shown directly from my computer desktop they got a really positive reception from my audience. However, saying that, [and its been a difficult conclusion to reach], their effectiveness would be diluted in a show if they were to be installed alongside paintings. Obviously, ideally, if I this were a solo show, I would have one room of paintings, and another dedicated to an installation for my time-based media work. But I don't. The degree show is, in essence, a group show, and as such, I have to take my best and most powerful work, and show it off to its best advantage.

In which case it means that I need to drop the paintings to one side, and focus solely on how to install the animations in such a way as [1], they are shown off to their best advantage, and [2], the installation clearly communicates the context of my work. This is what I discussed with Mel this afternoon. Initially I was thinking of having a row of screens across a black wall, which would each show several animations, with breaks in between. In order to contextualise the work, my initial idea was to have a separate speaker which would play a continuous loop of indistinct speech, which would in turn be drowned out by the music whenever one of the animations played. The idea behind this was that the crowd sound represented the mass of humanity, and each of the animations playing, and drowning out the crowd would indicate individuality. To further convey this point I also thought of leaving a few items on the floor in front of the row of screens -a can of Coca-Cola, a dirty plate & cutlery, which are again items common to all of humanity, as well as some highly individual & personal items, -a family photo or an identity document.

However, after speaking with Mel, I decided that this was not the best way of showing the work off, and would make the animations appear too cinematic, which they are not. They are animated collages to which minimalist scores, ripped from 1980's video games, have been added. Therefore its essential that the installation reflects their temporary & disposable nature, as well