Come and Go

Come and Go was exhibited at The Lowry Jan 2016 as a prototype dual-screen, interactive video installation. It was installed in the Studio Theatre and ran alongside the first digital exhibition in The Lowry Galleries: Right here Right Now, which included artists such as Thompson and Craighead, Timo Arnall and Eva and Franco Mattes. This installation was the first stage of production, technical development and interactive testing in preparation for further exhibition in 2017. The work references Edison’s early films of The Serpentine Dance made in the 1920’s. Its subject matter and execution alludes to analogue technique, now reworked for new media. Filmed from above in high resolution slow motion, the image presents a contemporary image and point of view. The audience is detected by surveillance on gaming cameras, and through their movement, alter the speed of image playback from slow motion to real time. This creates a play of move and counter-move, enabling the audience to switch between that of viewer to viewed. The technique and aesthetics of the artwork considers the shift between physical and digital media and the edges of spaces. It presents imagery which references drones, flight, entrapment, states of limbo and prompts questions surrounding location, dialogue or combat. Current research examines the gradual creep of ‘deep borders’ from the physical into digital space extended through new UK legislation The Investigatory Powers Act (Nov 2016). Come and Go was a Quays Culture research and development project supported by Laura Broome and Lucy Dusgate. The project was supported by Salford University, and enabled by Arts Council England and Sheffield Hallam University. The work will be exhibited at the Millennium Galleries as part of Everything Flows: June - August 2017 and will be accompanied by a catalogue publication featuring a review by Oliver Basciano (Art Review). I will also launch a collaborative publication on this work with artist-writer Emma Cocker (NTU); June 2017, which will form the basis of a proposal for an academic paper to Troubling Time: An Exploration of Temporality in the Arts: University of Manchester; June 2017.