Apparent Horizon
Influenced by Cotterrell's two year experience in the Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Monsters of the Id explores representations of war and the media. Cotterrell spent the first year of his creative journey taking photographs of the war torn country however he started to become discontent with this way of creating, describing it as "photography's false promise"
Apparent Horizon, 2012
Searchlight 2, 2012
What is interesting about this exhibition is the use of advanced display technologies, it is on the cutting edge, bridging art and technology. Each installation is not only interactive with the audience, there is a communication between each other, creating a complex network. The use of technology in this exhibition also allows you to be in control of your own engagement. I started to find the technology an intimidating presence and a possible reflection of the control and technology of the military.
Immediately, in the first installation Observer effect, you are imersed in a landscape that cross's the physical and virtual, creating and unnerving and alien world. It explores the notion of the foreign body, and as a population of figures grow before you, unsettling questions rise. Are you the observer or the observed? These notions are carried with you throughout the exhibition. The installation Searchlight 2 reveals projected shadowy figures crossing a desert terrain, I feel that this piece connotes a sense of displacement within the landscape, of those effected by war. This installation felt particularly intimidating to me as we are now possibly observing this landscape from the perspective of an aerial drone, are we in control?
Short video of the installation Searchlight 2
Overall I feel that Monsters of the Id provides an innovative perspective on war effected regions.
Image credit and more information here : http://www.hansardgallery.org.uk/exhibition/current.html
David Cotterrell : http://www.cotterrell.com/news/4511/monsters-of-the-id-110212/
Monsters of the Id will be at the John Hansard Gallery from the 11th Febuary - 31st March 2012
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