grounding
5 screen video installation | surround sound | 2013
At the time of this exhibition, Vantage Point, I had made a number of studies that relied, in part or in whole, upon close studies of the materiality of the gallery space in which I was working. My work for Vantage Point extended a number of trajectories from this ongoing body of work. For this installation I made a simple index of imagery examining the ground beneath our feet across the three levels of gallery three: the utility space beneath the floor, the main gallery floor and the steps leading up to the mezzanine. The audio, in a similar vein to the video, amplified the existing conditions by recording and amplifying the ambient sound of the gallery - that which we normally 'filter out'.
In terms of my vantage point upon this subject matter, in a similiar vein to a number of previous works, I chose to highlight largely ignored parts of the gallery environment. I have an abiding interest in the ways entropy has worked upon man-made artefacts to lend them an organic irregularity. In grounding we saw the gnawing of rats on insulation, the spores caught as they blew in from ventilation shafts, the cracking floors as foundations shifted, and the scuffs of many feet across rubber, steel and aluminium. These points where the articulated and organised were interrupted highlight and puncture the artificial schism between nature and culture. But, more importanly than this rather theory burdened claim, I find such things beautiful.