RED is proud to present In too deep, an exhibition by the Glasgow
based artist Ben Woodeson. Independently curated by RED, the show runs
along side DEEP ROOT, the ninth international festival of live, sound
and new media art organised by Hull Time Based Arts, www.root2001.org.
The faint sound of music is occasionally audible throughout the gallery,
and the faint smell of tomatoes hints at what is to come. From the
bizarrely portable (an appropriated granny trolley) to the absurdly
non-portable, a jury rigged transistor radio made room sized and
powered by 60 tins of tomatoes.
Absurdity has to be the over-riding impression, a bathtub of soup
sacrificed to power a vintage computer game, a sack of potatoes crossed
with the granny trolley and a ghetto blaster. If Heath Robinson woke up
needing a Walkman he might have come up with something like this.
Like a conceptual artists' Alice in Wonderland, The Mad Hatters Tea
party with the missing Jam cooking the toast. Home entertainment
devices functioning from scavenged power, laid out in the gallery like
relics of bygone science. Babbage's Difference Engine but a million
times more basic and made in a strange world where rationality is
banned. Part dodgy experiment, part imagined narrative a la Elroy or
Chandler. The aesthetic seemingly casual, the devices shouldn't work
but they could do. Well sometimes anyway!
Like a mad child let loose with a science set, Woodeson concocts weird
sculptural things, part performance, part sound work and part relic.
They each serve a function, but who would go to such extremes? Don't
try this at home, just pay your power bill and buy a stereo instead!
Since graduating in 1997 from Glasgow School of Art Ben Woodeson has
shown throughout the UK and in Europe. In too deep includes three new
pieces made expressly for the RED gallery as well as Everyday Value,
which was recently shown at Berlin's BBQ Project.
DEEP ROOT, www.root2001.org
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