‘Portal’ 2012

 ‘Through dreams, the various dwelling places in our lives co- penetrate and retain the treasures of former days.’ Gaston Bachelard.

 My work as an artist is an exploration of the concept of ‘memory’, relating to my own childhood in the late 80s and early 90s. My current installation has been developed within the college studio and this space has acted as an environment where I have been able to collect and explore objects and materials that I feel are relevant and I associate with this specific time in my life. These have been in the form of adverts, television programmes and video games but as my practice has developed I have been drawn to ready- made objects such as televisions, video cameras and video recorders from this specific time. This is due to my own interest in artists such as Jim Campbell and Haroon Mirza who use these electrical objects within their work allowing them to be transformed within the context of the gallery space and almost adopting personalities of their own. I also feel that through recognition and association, these objects become like ‘portals’ taking the viewer back to another place in time.

 Whilst working with this equipment I began to realise that these obsolete items from the 80s and 90s had a sadness to them, their ‘old fashioned’ bodies seemed uncared for and replaced by more modern versions. I wanted to delve into this further and experimented with their placement within the space along with adverts and television programmes that I had collected. I chose to use the ‘Scotch tape’ advert as it identifies the ‘obsoleteness’ of the equipment in its lyrics but when placed in the space along side the television, a narrative began to form. It seemed that perhaps the television was speaking aloud telling a story of a former time when it was once new and sophisticated. My practice has very much become about these objects and how they relate to the way we view memory, decay and our own mortality. Taking inspiration from Jim Campbell’s work I began to view these objects as ‘memory machines’ as they are in essence built to capture and play back moments in time.

 I am very much drawn to the ‘materiality’ of these objects and I wanted to create an interactive environment built on this. Through my exploration of memory and objects I have experimented with a variety of plastic materials, enjoying their transparent yet reflective qualities and how this relates to the fragmented and distorted nature of memory. My identity as an artist has revolved around the use of red Perspex material within my work and this has now become almost like my signature. Through the last 3 years it has represented various aspects of my childhood, from the redness of my parents’ living room, the red bricks of the fireplace and the warmth of the family unit to the ‘Tizer’ drink I had at the time. As my work has led to me to deeper analysis I feel that this red material represents much more, such as my body, my inner thoughts and the place where I hold these precious memories. It is also my expression and visualisation of a threshold between the past and the present and is also perhaps my ‘rose tinted spectacles’ of the world.

 It seemed essential to me to encase my objects within the red Perspex as if they are locked within my mind. By encasing them in this way I feel I have made the point that they are precious items, just as memories are precious but I have also expressed that they are out of reach and inaccessible through the placement of them within the space.

 I decided to create a black, reflective and dense surface as a floor for my cube and object to sit on again because this is representational of the technology I am using, such as the television screen and the film inside the VHS tape. Inspired by the artist Richard Wilson and his ’20:50’ installation I wanted to create a surreal environment for the viewer to explore and be affected by. When the ‘Scotch tape’ advert is projected in the space the floor reflects the video which I feel blurs the boundaries within the space. The television is echoed throughout the space through the materials I have used and their reflective yet transparent characteristics. The red Perspex cube also allows the image to pass through it yet retains parts of the moving image which again is representative of the nature of memory and how we retain fragments of them.

 It seemed necessary to create a boundary on the wall where the video is projected as again this echoes the structure of the television screen. I used black gaffer tape because of its plastic quality and because this is often used to protect wires on this type of equipment.

 The boundaries within the installation are both visible and invisible, the ‘squareness’ and pristine element of the floor and the space suggest that you cannot step on to it which again prevents the object from being completely accessible. I also felt that I wanted to be silently in control of the work, only allowing limited access to it but at the same time not asserting any written rules.

When navigating this work, it becomes apparent that these objects become like ‘ghosts’ from the past reminding us of our own mortality and the inevitable passing of time. The skeleton almost reaches out, as it seems to walk past the cube and put a VHS tape in the recorder, bringing it to life once more. The interruption of the video and the way the space becomes darker and silent for a few seconds intensifies this ‘bringing to life’ of the technology. This is perhaps inspired by the artist Bill Viola and his ‘The Stopping Mind’ installation where he describes the fleeting yet confrontational nature of memory.