Spike Island, Bristol, UK
20th November 2010, 2-3:30pm, Associates Space
For The Known Unknowns artists Rod Dickinson, Richard Grayson & Charlie Tweed will discuss their individual practices and their shared concerns around language, narrative and power, in particular their interest in power manifested as pervasive, self-policing social control.
All three artists use performative strategies in their respective practices, playing in particular with the conventions of documentary and reportage, stretching out their factual forms to seemingly absurdist, fictional conclusions. These include an endless live looping press briefing that layers catastrophe onto emergency (Rod Dickinson’s Closed Circuit, 2010); a choral work with a libretto based on a 1960s cult Children of God, imagining a Book of Revelations style, post-peak oil apocalypse (Richard Grayson’s The Golden Space City of God, 2009) and a series of sci-fi transmissions from a shadowy collective orchestrating change on a global scale in order to keep us ‘safe’ (Charlie Tweed, Notesseries 2007-10).
These works appear to over-identify with a world in thrall to crisis, acting out our fears as a form of critique.
This event will provide the chance to discuss the artists’ strategies, their individual works and the wider social and political contexts which frame them.
The Known Unknowns has been programmed in response to Charlie Tweed’s solo exhibition Notes I, II & III currently on show at Spike Island and on-line courtesy of Animate Projects. The discussion will be chaired by Spike Island Curator Marie-Anne McQuay.