Responding to Waterloo Festival’s 2019 theme Transforming Being, this moving image exhibition explores the myriad meanings of self-service
An exhibition of Artists’ Moving Image
10th to 16th June 2019
Daily, Mon-Sat 1-6pm and Sun 12-4pm
Crypt of St John’s, 73 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8TY
FREE
Preview: Wed 12th June, 6-9pm
‘The age of automation will be the age of do it yourself”, Marshall McLuhan
More and more we are being asked to do things ourselves. From shopping to car insurance, services that traditionally required a human representative have been redesigned so that customers complete their business interacting only with machines. Some might argue this gives us more flexibility and choice and while others see us all becoming unpaid employees, required to do the work in order to access what we need.
Taking its lead from the check-out counters of supermarkets and petrol station forecourts, this exhibition brings together 23 moving image works that respond to this idea of ‘self-service’. Works were contributed by members of the London Group, invited artists and artists chosen from an open call in response to the title.
David Theobald and Genetic Moo, Curators
Exhibiting artists:
Katerina Athanasopoulou, Stephen Carley LG, Sandra Crisp LG, Vardit Goldner, Geeske Janßen, Helena Klakocar, Daniel McKee, Micheál O’Connell/MOCKSIM LG, Genetic Moo LG, Duncan Poulton, Charlotte C Mortensson LG, Svetlana Ochkovskaya, Piotr Piasta, Sue Ridge, James Rosamond, Eric Schockmel, Alcaeus Spyrou, David Theobald LG. (see below for artist biographies)
Artist Biographies
Katerina Athanasopoulou is a Greek-born artist living in London who creates animated films for cinema and gallery space. She studied Fine Art at Aristotle University in Greece and Animation at the Royal College of Art. Her films have been shown internationally at film festivals and galleries, including Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, Thessaloniki Biennale 5, Holland Animation Film Festival, European Media Art Festival, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb. Katerina is currently a PhD candidate within Plymouth University, researching the affective affordances of VR animated documentaries. kineticat.co.uk
Stephen Carley LG works across a number of interconnected media. Painting and drawing, photography and photograms, sound, text and moving image. He describes his work as completely concerned with context, process and materials and rooted in an analysis of the urban landscape. He is also a teacher of art and photography at a large, city centre comprehensive in Sheffield. Recent exhibitions have been POVERA at the Cello Factory in London, The Path of Least Resistance at Access Project Space in Sheffield and Finding Lines at Derby Museum and Art Gallery. His work addresses, at various times, profanities, congested space, white noise, ugly / beautiful, process led, making a mark interventions. This is his ‘punk rock’. A product of the late seventies and early eighties art school education system he graduated from Chelsea School of Art with an MA in 1984. He was elected a member of The London Group in 2018. stephencarley.co.uk
Sandra Crisp LG (b. Cheshire, UK) graduated MA Fine Art Printmaking Wimbledon School of Art in 1995 and now works primarily with digital media. Her practice is influenced by today’s saturation of images and information creating multi-layered and complex imagery using video, GIF, experimental 3D images and sometimes code. Recent awards and exhibitions include; (2018) The Lumen Prize shortlist; (2017) The Schauerman Digital Art Prize; (2018) ADAF, Athens Digital Art Festival, Greece; Visions in the Nunnery, Bowarts, London; Uncommon Natures, Phoenix Brighton; FILE Festival, Brazil. In 2018 she was elected a member of The London Group and is now Honorary Deputy Vice President. sandracrispart.com
Vardit Goldner is a photography and video artist, living in Israel. Goldner is engaged in documenting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and in particular its effects on the daily life of Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. She addresses social issues and animal issues as well. Goldner studied at the Faculty of Arts – Hamidrasha at Beit Berl College, Israel, completing the personal program (2010) and the Postgraduate Fine Arts Program (2016). In her recent work, Goldner creates video works showing women preparing and eating supper, and documents the fight of Israeli disabled to have their state-funded allowance raised. She holds an M.Sc. in physics. email [email protected]
Geeske Janßen was born in a small village in northern Germany. She studied Media Art at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, Performing Arts at the Braunschweig University of Art and Fine Art at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. Geeske Janßen was given the advancement award of photography of the Kulturstiftung der Öffentlichen Versicherungen Oldenburg and won the first prize of the Media Art Award, Horb am Neckar. She was nominated for the NORDWESTKUNSTPREIS and advancement award Hans Purrmann Stiftung für Bildende Kunst. Her works were shown in the Halle 14/ Leipzig, Stadtmuseum Oldenburg, Galerie Gerken / Berlin, International Performancefestival SOFIA UNDERGROUND /Sofia, Bulgarien and Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven. geeskejanssen.com
Helena Klakocar lives and works between Zagreb and Amsterdam. She studied graphic art, painting, and film animation and currently works as a freelance artist mainly producing graphic novels and illustrations. She’s made a number of animations, videos, and a children’s picture book. She initially started using the video camera simply to document things that could inform her other work, e.g. graphic novels, but recently she has begun to see this footage as work in its own right. She has presented work in two film festivals in Croatia: PRESS film festival and SEFF. helenaklakocar.com email [email protected]
Daniel McKee is a British filmmaker and Internet artist. His practice employs the web as field of activity, which provide him foundation material to be skilfully selected and edited into complex and open-ended narratives. In 2017 his video ‘Mona Lisa Selfie’ won a Vimeo Staff Pick and his 4 part series of Internet Works (iW) has collectively received over 175K views online – these films include hacking the Google Image Search algorithm, Emoji hunting and assorting over a thousand curated items from Amazon, by price ascending. Daniel is currently working with the Arts Council in Wales on a collaborative mixed media film, engaging local artists in North Wales. danielmckee.com
Micheál O’Connell / MOCKSIM LG describes himself as a systems interference artist. His strategies include misuse, lampooning and tinkering with everyday technological systems. Found imagery, data and other items are exhibited directly. Also, documentation and methods are shared as sets of instructions or ‘tutorials.’ His work has been shown in locations such as the Whitechapel Art Gallery, Lighthouse (Brighton), Wandesford Quay Gallery (Cork City, Ireland), Les Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d’Arles, and Arts Santa Mónica, Barcelona. O’Connell graduated with distinction from an MA in Fine Art in 2006 and was elected a member of The London Group in 2018. mocksim.org
Genetic Moo LG build living installations in pixels and light. In dark spaces you can interact with their fantastical creatures or immerse yourself in their digital ecosystems. Their work draws widely from popular science, particularly in the areas of ecology, symbiosis, morphology, mutation and artificial life. They are currently working on a series of Microworlds. They have shown extensively in the UK and abroad, including The Science Centre, Singapore; LABoral, Gijon; Furtherfield, London; ICC Open Sky Gallery, Hong Kong; Dreamland, Margate; D’Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum, Dundee; Glastonbury; The Wellcome Collection and GEEK. geneticmoo.com
Charlotte C Mortensson LG was born in Stockholm and is now based in London, Zurich and Kingston Jamaica. She is interested in unofficial architecture, where homes develop without official planning using discarded materials. She has been documenting the housing in Trench Town Jamaica for over a decade, where the powerful, ever-evolving architecture is a multi-layered record of the area’s history. Recent exhibitions include A Persistent Place at Kunsthaeuschen Herrliberg, Zurich; Caribbean In/Securities & Creative Research at the British Library, London and University of the West Indies, Jamaica and touring; One Night Stand, Barbican Arts Group Trust, London charlottecmortensson.com
Svetlana Ochkovskaya is currently studying MFA Fine Art at the Goldsmiths University of London, having graduated with a First Class Honours in BA Fine Art from the Southampton Solent University in 2017. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally and was recently shortlisted for Visual Art Open Prize 2018 and Batsford Prize Award 2017 and 2019. She been nominated by Aspex Gallery Portsmouth to the shortlist for Platform Graduate Award 2017 and for Best Visual Artist Guide Award Portsmouth 2018 and 2019. She completed the two- month residency project at Aspex Gallery in January and a two-month residency at Space/Sticks Gallery in Fareham in July 2018. ochkovskayart.com on_instagram on_twitter
Piotr Piasta is a visual artist and independent filmmaker. Born in 1981 in Brudnow village, central Poland, where he currently lives and works. His artwork explores themes of history, time and memory often within a rural context and he is particularly interested in ageing within rural communities and the stories and memories of older people in these communities. He has exhibited internationally including RAI Film Festival, Bristol; Berwick Visual Arts, Berwick-upon-Tweed; TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art, Szczecin; Lubomirov / Angus-Hughes, London; AVI Festival at The Israeli Film Museum, Jerusalem; TIVAF, Tasmania and the Toronto Indie Doc Fest. piotrpiasta.com
Duncan Poulton is an artist working with video appropriation and digital collage. Itinerant in nature, his work is preoccupied with simulation, circulation and the copy, and is an ongoing remediation of our increasingly virtual world. Recent exhibitions and screenings include Transmediale, Berlin; OUTPOST, Norwich; QUAD, Derby; MIT Museum, Massachusetts; Whitechapel Gallery, Tate Modern, London; Eastside Projects, Flatpack Festival, Birmingham; Czong Institute of Contemporary Art, South Korea and Athens Digital Arts Festival. He lives and works in London, UK. duncanpoulton.com
Sue Ridge studied at Kingston University and Goldsmiths College. She is an artist, and Visiting Lecturer at Chelsea College of Arts. Recent commissions include X-Ray Archive funded by The University of the Arts, working with the six college Archives and Special collections. This involved an exhibition of prints at Central Saint Martins Archives Windows Gallery 2018. Recent exhibitions – ‘Interruptions’ Alternative processes group show at Photofusion Gallery , Brixton. London Group Open Exhibition 2015 – Photography Prize winner. Neo Print Prize Exhibition Bolton – Printmaking Today Magazine Award 2016. She is a member of the collaborative group – Embroidered Minds exploring epilepsy and the William Morris Family exhibiting at UCLH Neurological Hospital Library, Queen Square London and the Chelsea Flower Show 2018. sueridgeportfolio.com
James Rosamond was born in Wales and grew up in Devon. He graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University with a Degree in Art. As well as the visual, James has always had a passion for music having released on Output Records. In 2018 James brought together this love of music and visuals to create a new career as an artist who uses animated techniques to tell playful stories that twist convention. The New York Gay scene is a recurring reference he uses to explore his fascination with the culture of nightlife. jamesrosamond.com
Eric Schockmel has worked as a graphic designer, motion designer, and moving image artist between London, Brussels and Luxembourg. He recently directed a feature length documentary entitled Tune Into The Future about Hugo Gernsback, the”father of science fiction”, to be released in late 2019. He now designs exhibitions and learning experiences about science at Luxembourg’s Natural History Museum. ericschockmel.net
Alcaeus Spyrou (b. Elbasan, Albania) is a visual artist working with the cinematic image. In his practice, Alcaeus utilizes a psychoanalytical scope on cinema to deconstruct the inter-dependent nature of the medium. Through this process, he searches for new dialects of the cinematic language. By combining the two antithetical genres of fiction and non-fiction he establishes connections with the alienated environment. He informs the mythologies of contemporary migration that reveal collective mourning as the substance of our intricate relations to the other. alcaeusspyrou.com on_instagram
David Theobald LG (b. Worthing, UK) graduated with an MFA in Art practice from Goldsmiths in 2008. Technology and its impact on subjectivity lies at the heart of his practice. Consisting primarily of digital animation, his work and subject matter tends to mirror the structure of the underlying technology used in its creation and the repetitive processes that seem central to the infrastructure of contemporary society. Frequently, the intensive labour that goes into his animations is perversely used to produce images of objects and experiences that we normally go out of our way to avoid seeing and experiencing. He has exhibited widely both in the UK and abroad and last year won the Addison Prize at the Chaiya Art Awards. Recently his work featured in the book “Experimental Animation: From Analogue to Digital” (Harris et al, Routledge, 2019). davidtheobald
