Wednesday 21 March 2012

Topophobia

Topophobia: a morbid dread of certain places. 

 Currently, at the Bluecoat gallery in Liverpool the exhibition on show is ‘Topophobia,’ whereby a group of 10 artist have responded to the anxiety disorder, topophobia, using many different medias and technologies.

http://topophobia.co.uk/ 

 

The link to the website will give you a glimpse of all the artists at the exhibition, however the ones in particular that caught my eye were Uta Kogelsberger, Louise K. Wilson, Anne Eggebert and David Ferrando Giraut. 

 

Uta Kogelsberger:

Her work was a collection of photographs taken from darkened and strangely lit places, places such as Urban American landscapes to the complete wilderness. The collection is supposed to symbolise our unconscious thoughts about space. 

 

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Louise K Wilson:

Wilson’s work was based on the ‘Lost traces of space,’ in many of her works she likes to bring to light the certain absences and silences encountered in a place, uncovering its mysterious and secrets. Her video work incorporates both real and imagined landscapes.

 

I managed to capture a short one minute clip of her video.

M4H01326.MP4 Watch on Posterous

Anne Eggebert:

Eggebert uses drawing as a device to collapse distance and time. Working with images from Google Earth she uses repeated hatch marks to explore the landscapes of elsewhere – places once familiar that are no longer visited – or watercolours to depict holiday destinations that reveal the traces of a lost presence. She looks at how our actual and imaginative experiences of reality construct our perception and performance of place. The way images, books and films we fill our brain with inform the way we see the real world.

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David Ferrando Giraut:

Giraut’s film was definitately the most dramatic piece in the exhibition. As you walk into the room you step into what will be a cinematic experience. The film is slow moving, showing the aftermath of a car crash that is set on a large green, open, space that has been taken over by the ghostly sounds. The slow movement of the camera, combined with the cinematic music encourages the feeling of anxiety and suspense.

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What I took from this exhibition was not the ways in which these artists worked but the thoughts behind there pieces. I believe such ideas would be very inspiring for the project on Manchester, thinking about the way locations make you feel. How the media influences the way we look at certain places, do we imagine places that are not there? What secrets can we discover?

 

 

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