Impossible Object No. 1 (Imagine, No Pollution) (2016)

  • Year: 2016

    Type of work:

    Installation

    Funding source: Self-funded

    First exhibited: Some Impossible Objects: Four New Works, Benham Gallery, Essex, Feb 2020

    Technical details: Solar panels, Angle-poise lamps, battery, regulator, electric motor and gears, music box.

    Over the past three years (2016 onwards) I have been working on a new series of installations entitled “Impossible Objects”. My notion of the “Impossible Object” is related to sculpture in relationship to moving images and sound. I make temporary works which involve the combination of ordinary physical objects with images and/or sound. I seek ways to construct relationships between domestic objects with video and sound to produce an “impossible” situation that can only exist temporarily within the mind of the viewer. Although these pieces have much in common with my earlier work in that they sometimes incorporate or feature renewable energy components in order to make connections to the theme of flow, they are also more directly centred on notions of “process” as a central concern. They are “Impossible Objects” not because they cannot exist (as they clearly do), but because they they make use of or refer to a process that contains a contradiction or present an “impossible” idea. They are representations of a state or situation that cannot be achieved except through the processes and agency of art. In this respect I have been influenced in part by the Mono-ha works of Korean artist Lee Ufan, in which there is an encounter between different materials- “a relationship of tension” in which the work is the site of the encounter. All of the works are hybrid installation/sculpture made using domestic technology; assemblages using readily available materials and equipment. All of these Impossible Objects are hybrid installation/sculptures made using domestic technology; assemblages using readily available materials and equipment.

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