Sometimes the answer starts to obscure the question: people falter on the
second question in 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' because the ease of the
answer sends a shower of bright light over the question.
Richard Couzins ' new video takes the punctuation qualities of emblematic
still-shots of TV soaps and sit-coms and turns them in on themselves.
Couzins exploits the rhythmic possibilities of editing and its fragmenting
effect on narrative using voiceover-text-image conjuring.
Christopher Lee has made a frieze of photographs of toys on identical
backgrounds. Painted dots on the surface of the prints cover the image area
of the toys - their familiar outline just recognisable. Lee is interested in
material contrasts: the irregularly applied matt paint partially
obliterating both the image and the gloss of the surface; the comforting and
familiar rendered indistinct.
Carly Rogers' large-scale photographs show the basic accoutrements of a
magic act. The objects are arranged as they would be in a catalogue shot.
The nature of the imagery combines an awkward vulnerability, inherent in the
objects and their construction, with an authority and confidence created by
the way in which they have been photographically recorded and presented.
What you see is what you get, but it is not enough. When the cards are on
the table - and face up - what is left but hearts, clubs, diamonds and
spades and the possibilities of the game.
All the work has a deceptive simplicity, a disingenuous minimalism. The
basic and insignificant (the cardboard box, the toy, the suburban house)
thwart indepth analysis, evoking a kind of pathos, leaving us free to enjoy
the elegant arrangements, rhythms, and surfaces.
Related Links: