The Violence Initiative: Mixed media installation by Emma Gibson, 2010.
The Violence Initiative (a now defunct project headed by the National Institute of Mental Health 10 years ago) envisioned identifying genetically twisted young individuals. The programme aimed to somehow pre-treat dormant mental health issues therapeutically with drugs before they manifested. With the development of FMRI brain imaging we can now provide genetic biomarkers to predetermine mental health issues such as depression.
Alongside depression and mood disorder, the frontal lobes of the brain are responsible for personality, creativity and memory. Without memory we cannot imagine and without imagination, we lose the ability to empathise, or understand another’s suffering. In a world without empathy where do we, as a society, stand?
If you could really see your future nightmares unfold as your life began, would you still choose to have them? With a predetermined future, with each possibility pre-recorded in a lab are we in danger of discouraging progress? The Myth Of The Artist -that ‘fine madness’ associated with so many of our celebrated creatives that are touched by depression and held up as geniuses throughout history- could simply disappear.
Equalisation –a state in which we all become equal in our life histories- could be seen as the de-souling of the human race. Is this process a safeguard for individual mental health or the gradual decomposition of creativity itself?
Artificial Lures -Mixed media sculpture (in windows) by Emily Pugh, 2010.
Inspired by the gentlemen’s activity of fly fishing with its methodically constructed fishing hooks, I have created objects for Garcia Madrid that on one hand lure with their seductive display while on the other are dangerously capturing.
Such tiny imitations of life, traditionally handmade by men since the middle ages, mimic the time consuming patience of the couturier, who creates their bespoke garments with a similar purpose; to exploit the attention and admiration of onlookers. Like the men’s suit, tailored to a client's specific requirements, All dressed up, like bait. each artificial insect is made- to- measure from gathered materials (feathers, fur, shiny synthetics) and uniquely crafted with care.
Once patterns of natural camouflage, collected materials are used now to engage and seize in a decorative conglomerate of urban detritus. Like the forbidden apple, my replica insects are there to entice using juxtaposing found materials that are wound, bound and transformed into beautiful objects of desire catching many eyes.
Conurbate Capitulate: Photographs by Raven Smith, 2010.
Each action undertaken has a purpose, an ultimate outcome, orientated toward a particular end.
The world we inhabit is a maze; a series of metaphorical, physical and emotional obstacles we’re forever navigating in order to streamline our way through life. Modern life is a journey peppered with pitfalls, obstructions and traps, wherein our ability to overcome each thing thrown in our path become the basis of life itself. A wrong turn; a false start; a missed exit; and we’re thrown into turmoil, desperate to find our way back to our original path.
In Conurbate Capitulate our intrepid explorer navigates his way through the debris of the metropolis, grappling with the municipal hindrances he’s presented with. Each step of the journey is its own encapsulated attempt to overcome the impediments of a suggested distopia. Without inception or destination this presented journey becomes a never-ending visual comment on the infinite restrictions we must endure to survive—our innate need to stay afloat in a submersive culture of detractions.
The photographs here depict seemingly random, absurd and impulsive moments, slanted beyond the confines of natural gravity and yet surrendering implicitly to them. A brick wall floor and a tarmac sky frame our upturned protagonist, literally reflecting the disorder and upheaval of everyday life. Our explorer should fall, gravity dictates that, but he doesn’t fall towards the ground—a battle with gravity itself is fought, won and simultaneously lost as the subject navigates his way through the cornucopia of debris in the modern city.
