Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
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Zoe Walker, Neil Bromwich, ‘Celestial Radio - How The Universe Sang Itself Into Being’, 2004.
Firstsite, Colchester
31 July – 4 September 2004
Reviewed by: Wil Bolton
‘Coast’ is an exhibition that showcases specially commissioned works inspired by and created along the Essex coastline. Zoë Walker and Neil Bromwich’s photographs document their work How the Universe Sang Itself into Being. The original performance took the form of a radio show broadcast from a mirrored boat on the River Blackwater estuary. Inspired by the 1970s pirate station Radio Caroline, the show was broadcast for twenty-five days and hosted discussions about philosophy and science to a soundtrack of prog rock and proto-ambient music.
Masaki Fujihata’s Mersea Circle is an interactive digital work developed from data collected using video cameras and Global Positioning System devices to track the movement of people on Mersea Island, nine miles south east of Colchester.
Neville Gabie’s video piece consists of three screens showing jumpy and blurred footage of sky and landscape. The artist was unable to gain access to his subject, Foulness Island, a military zone owned by the Ministry of Defence. His solution was to use cameras attached to stunt kites to film the island, thus exploring ideas of inaccessibility, boundaries and surveillance. John Kippin’s series of photographs of the Essex coastline focuses on its military history and highlights issues concerning borders, memory and identity. Elizabeth Wright shows an image of her proposed work Coach, a full-size tourist coach standing up on its end, planned for construction in the Tendring district, but not completed due to opposition from the local population.
Also on show here is documentation of artworks planned for integration into three schools in Clacton-on-Sea by Rob Olins, Andrew Smith and Michael Pinsky. The latter’s work Weather Cluster will be made up of twenty-nine flat-screen monitors suspended from the ceiling, showing images of weather shot by pupils from the school which will be controlled by a computer program linked to a local weather station.
Writer detail:
Wil Bolton is a writer and musician.
Venue detail:
Firstsite
The Coach House, East Hill House, 76 High Street, Colchester CO1 1UF
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