Rules of the Game - Transition
Third in the series of short exhibitions by students at Nottingham Trent University
May 1st to May 5th 2007
Nine MA visual artists have been selected by curators Lucy Stevens and Cat Preston in response to the theme of transition. ‘Transition’, meaning to change and evolve, is used in the exhibition to explore the making and breaking of the rules which inform our experience of the world around us. The result is a series of ominous and amusing games, where rules are open to interpretation.
Sandrea Simons’ installation, Sandrea Gets a Date! Explores the rules of the dating game as six contestants go on a journey of leg waxing, finding baby sitters and buying condoms to ensure Sandrea gets her man. The game is created in favour of the artist and the audience is offered the same luxury. Gender is also the subject of Joon Kwon’s animation, which presents the life of a female student under a strict and merciless educational system. We watch as she changes from victim to winner. Female stereotypes are the subject of Soo Kwon’s video, How do I look? Kwon’s character performs unsuitable roles in very conventional circumstances, playing with the viewer’s perceptions and expectations.
Tetsuya Fukushima’s exhibits a series of paintings which combine to create a sense of déjà vu, the transition from real to unreal, and shall be shown through a series of slides. The artist strives to create an imaginary space using his memories and dreams, emphasizing mood and atmosphere by exaggerating shapes and colour. Exploring, and questioning, the belief of the afterlife, Cat Preston has produced an installation, entitled Existing Memory, which is comprised of a series of drawings which disappear as the audience interact with them. In this piece the work is given over to the audience. As the art becomes simply a personal perception, leaving only a trace of an illusion behind, the audience is encouraged to question their belief in material reality. Lucy Stevens similarly plays with the experiential nature of the audience within the exhibition space. In her video installation, Spy Hole, the artist creates a narrative between the ‘watcher’ and the ‘watched’, by playing video cameras and monitors in different parts of the exhibition space. Stevens is concerned with the fear and pleasure associated with the voyeur and the escapist.
In Sonic Washing Machine Owen Baxter encourages the audience to play with the sound of his own washing machine. This piece of everyday technology is transformed into a virtual musical instrument, which can be played using various control devices. The virtual, lenticular photographs by Joe Wong also allow the audience to control what they see. Wong wants the viewer to determine their own experience based on where they choose to stand. The short animation by Leif Arwen Gifford uses the themes of dualisms and contradictions to form a transitory state between a sci-fi future and an imagined reality. Entitled As rule would have it, spaceships wouldn’t fly this way; the audience is encouraged to consider alternative outcomes.
Through creative appropriation, and indeed transition, the audience has an integral role to play in the functioning of the exhibition. By attributing the audience with the role of the contestant, the artists are able to explore the notion of play as a form of subversion and social critique. The Rules of the Game are certainly laid bare by these interactive and diverse pieces.