Tuesday, March 19, 2013

TRAWLER


TRAWLER

a MadeScapes ^ installation
Private view March 22nd 6-10pm

Exhibition continues: Saturday 23 and Sunday 24,  12 – 5pm




From an electro-tropical internet basecamp, the lone user trawls the webs of reference, collecting and filtering vast tracts of data into some semblance of self.
MadeScapes invites you to witness the trawler in all his glory as we make our first foray into combining our installation work with performance. From a broadband-enabled mock-desert island, a solitary blogger will navigate through our collective online sketchbook.
Multiple screens and projections will reveal the trawler’s behaviour in a most public fashion, establishing and eradicating myriad mini-narratives along the way. As he makes his selections, themes will inevitably be repeated and images and video clips revisited, revealing his personal preferences as he creates his online identity.
The trawler inhabits the gaps between original thought and plagiarism, where someone else said something that loosely approximated what he was already thinking. The trawler is the latest product of an age when quotation provides the dominant creative outlet; he occupies a space where consumption of everything is faster, easier, and more affordable. The Trawler self-curates and makes himself available for consumption by other users.”
Excerpt from The Trawler, by Trevor H Smith
MadeScapes ^
MadeScapes is a Bristol-based collaborative art practice comprised of five artists, one graphic designer, and one writer. Established in 2011, MadeScapes has exhibited across the UK and in Europe.
Drawing on individual and collective experience in a rapidly evolving digital world, MadeScapes creates installations which feed from and into the individual practices of its members, whose varied theoretical approaches converge on the common themes of digital culture, glitch aesthetic, and the post-human experience.
Traditional media such as painting and carpentry are placed in parallel with glitch portraiture, text on social media platforms, and looped blog videos, to create a unique visual experience.
MadeScapes is committed to enabling interaction between the audience, the artists and their works, and the spaces and communities in which the work is shown.















Friday, March 8, 2013

AS A LOTUS FLOWER IS BORN IN WATER



Josephine Sowden: 

As a Lotus Flower is Born in Water


Private View: Friday 8 March 2013 - 6pm til late

Exhibition continues: Saturday 9 and Sunday 10,  12 – 5pm





Motorcade/FlashParade is pleased to host the first solo show of Josephine Sowden, the recipient of Hand in Glove's Platform Commission.

Josephine Sowden uses lens-based media to explore the human condition in relation to modern day consciousness. Commissioned by Hand in Glove, Sowden’s new work 'As a Lotus Flower is Born in Water' is an immersive two-channel video installation.

Inherently performative, the work features the artist amidst the natural landscape, externalising notions of ‘nature’, ‘self’ and ‘ego’. The oppositional personas that Sowden assumes reduce experience to a series of words, distorted memories of the past and predictions of an uncertain future. These confrontational actions exaggerate and bring in to sharp focus a modern day obsession with inner streams of thought; ultimately seeking to question a separation from nature and more primal instincts and desires.

Sowden graduated from BA Photographic Art at University of Wales, Newport in 2012 and has since been selected for the Catlin Guide, Videoholica International Video Art Festival in Bulgaria and the 2012 Aesthetica Art Prize. Her degree show piece 'Lilies of the Field' was selected by Hand in Glove for PLATFORM 2012; a group exhibition showcasing work by promising arts graduates from Bristol, Bath and Newport. Sowden was then awarded the PLATFORM Commission, to create new work with the support of Hand in Glove for her first solo exhibition.

Lilies of the Field will be screened on the opening night only.

Hand in Glove are a group of artists and curators who initiate and curate projects, supporting emerging artist practice in and around Bristol. The PLATFORM Commission is part of a twelve month series of projects funded by Arts Council England. University of Wales, Newport are also supporting As a Lotus Flower is Born in Water.

Josephine Sowden is the recipient of Hand in Glove's PLATFORM Commission.