… calling Helmsdale by Oliver Mezger th
nd
29 April – 22 May
The books here represent some of the inspiration and influences on my work. I am fascinated by local patterns, rhythms and routines, and their importance to the Highlands today: I have found similar interlocking circular motifs (or threads) in Pictish stonework, Free Church Psalmody (Psalm Singing) and the classical music of the Highland bagpipes (Pibroch). These threads are deeply ingrained and interwoven into highland tradition and have the power to change the way we think about ourselves, our ‘identity’. ‘Alan MacDonald – Dastrium – The playful essence of ceòl mór’ & ‘The Problem of the Picts – F.T Wainwright’; ‘Fishing for Ganseys – by The Moray Firth Gansey Project’.
My work explores these threads of local highland culture in the context of global digital culture i.e internet, mobile communication and 24hr global feeds in a virtual culture. I am interested in the relationship between the modern and the historical.
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Is local culture and heritage relevant to a global digital audience?
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Is digital media appropriate for local cultural /historical content? ‘Did someone say participate’ – edited by Markus Miessen and Shumon Basar.
My work explores our experience of digital video, analogue film and audio and how we relate to digital content.
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How does digital media attract us, and hold our attention?
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Do we experience the digital in the same way as we experience dreams or fantasies or real life?
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Do we consider our digital/online interaction to be ‘real’ or ‘virtual’?
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Do we feel we have to ‘be ourselves’ when expressing ourselves through digital media? Exhibition Catalogue: ‘Power of Making’ – V&A, London.
My work explores how our intake of digital content shapes our view of the world, of each other and our own identity. - Do we think about digital representations of Helmsdale in the same way as we think about digital representations of the rest of the world (as we see on the news)? - Are relationships that we form through digital media ‘real relationships’ as we have when we meet people in person, or the sort of relationships we would have with a fictional TV character? - Do we feel responsible for the actions we take when communicating through digital media (particularly when communicating with people we do not know who are geographically distant from us) I want to put the audience in a situation where they are aware of the content of a film, video, sound as shown by the camera or recording equipment. Once the viewer has entered the gallery he/she is immersed 70
in the reality of the projection: - I use the 2 dimensional media of video and sound in a 3 dimensional experience. - I fracture the subject matter to reflect our fragmented experience of digital media, while heightening the visual and audio experience of it. - I use mirrors and semi transparent materials to reflect and refract the image. This allows us to enter into and consider our bodies in an unusual physical reality. - I heighten this experience by echoing forms derived from baroque music. - I further develop motifs through an ‘arabesque’ ornamentation of material. Exhibition Catalogue: ‘Film in Space’ – Camden Arts Centre, London.
Literally, I want to evoke a domestic space within the Gallery, and experience its temporary decoration. ‘Bloomsbury Rooms – by Christopher Reed & ‘Lighting’ by Alexander Fenton, from Scottish Life and Society: Scotland's Domestic Life v. 6: A Compendium of Scottish Ethnology (Scottish Life & Society 6).
Metaphorically, you meet Duncan and myself, ‘... calling Helmsdale’, as the title of the show suggests. ‘Margaret Tait: Poems, Stories and Writings – edited by Sarah Neely & ‘The Happy Hypocrite: for and about experimental art writing’.
ET IN ARCADIA EGO. I, Aye Poussin.
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