Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
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Ergin Cavusoglu, ‘Point of Departure’, video still, 2006.
Courtesy: Film and Video Umbrella and Haunch of Venison. © the artist.
[enlarge]
Ergin Cavusoglu, ‘Point of Departure’, installation at John Hansard Gallery, 2006.
Courtesy: Film and Video Umbrella and Haunch of Venison. © the artist.
John Hansard Gallery, Southampton
4 May – 17 June
Reviewed by: Stephen Riley
(Insert artists correct name in first proof _ KB doesn't like it)
It is a cliché of current times that ‘we are all members of a diaspora now’. Whether that stands close scrutiny is debatable. However, as the skies are criss-crossed with aircraft carrying business people, pleasure seekers and refugees, it is clear that something has changed, even from half a generation ago. In the Global Village we are all permanently on the move, and we are all familiar with the stress and tedium of airports.
The eponymous ‘Point of Departure’ comprises five projections on translucent screens, with a sixth projected onto the floor. The screens, which feature scenes from two airports, create an architectural space through which the viewer can pass. Characters meet at Stansted and Trabzon in Turkey: airports at the Atlantic and Asian fringes of Europe. There is a hint of narrative, but nothing conclusive. The familiar experience of X-ray baggage checks, metal detectors and PA announcements is played out. The sleek steel and glass architecture of Stansted is visibly different from the cream and grey municipal style of Trabzon, but the experience is essentially the same.
Adrift is the second major piece in the show. Four screens change continually: city streets, grand buildings, people walking, tube trains departing; in the background the city’s noise is coupled with portentous-sounding music. Kids swing on a scaffold. The moon appears in the night sky and then vanishes. Tourists in a museum study an architect’s model. A jet flies (now ominously) over the New York skyline. A yacht floats serenely by in a seascape.
Equivalence to the real experience of contemporary spaces is created. One becomes aware of the partial understanding one has of a complex space, in which information is gathered and filtered because there is too much to take in. This also draws attention to our relationships with art and screens: an expectation of conventional narrative is created, but the sequences refuse to offer this. The egalitarian qualities of the screens override the natural mental filters through which we attend to some things and eliminate others, and each of the scenes with its potential for meaning or meaninglessness demands equal attention.
Writer detail:
Dr Stephen Riley is an artist and writer based in the south of England.
stephenriley8@hotmail.com |
www.stephenrileyart.com
Venue detail:
John Hansard Gallery
University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ
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