Memory + Migration II at Déda
January 2010

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Memory + Migration II PV 23.01.2010
Exhibition continues until 28.03.2010

I Can See Your House From Here
27th february - 19th march  2010

Private View
Saturday 27th Feb 2010 (1pm – 4pm)


Cruiser Quarterly Review

I can see your house from here’

 a conversation between artists concerning notions of scientific discovery, space, the past and the nostalgic future.

 I can see your house from here’ …There is
 a natural want for humankind to believe that it
has both a place and a future in the future.
This exhibition considers impending possibilities, the colonisation of other worlds, time
travel, Utopianism, free will, innocence,
idealism and fatalism…dystopia, the
entropic exhaustion of a dying earth; the
marking of the end of time. It is anticipated that
our current trajectory is unlikely to deviate,
except if some form of Malthusian
catastrophe was to ensue or there were
social shifts in values, or an accident of nature
was to becalm humanity. We determine that it
is plausible that the more we speculate about
the future so the future we predict and
describe shall come to pass.


 The Cruiser network of ‘artists who travel
 hopefully’ is exploring nostalgic futures in its
next quarterly review. The group inherited the
idea of the quarterly review from Oldknows
Studio Group, from which Cruiser
emerged, earlier this year. The last two
quarterly reviews, Memory + Migration and
Cold War, already touched upon some of
the ideas that will be expanded in ‘
I can see
your House From Here' 
. Simon Withers
delves into the profound aesthetics of space in his work ‘Blueprint for no tomorrow’, whilst in ‘Memeplexes’- ‘Just before he died, he was sure that he could smell the sweetness of life…it was the scent of fresh marzipan’, Withers repaints the world, a world reincarnated with foretold utopian visions, fables of wonderland and lost legendary islands…Spartel Bank, Locus Amoenus, Ultima Thule, Atollk and Lemuria, the inventory reads like a nomenclature for the desired. Both Simon and Yelena Popova have been exploring science and science fiction
for quite some time; indeed, astronomy
and Modernism’s romantic attachment to the
idea of scientific progress and the space
race is central to Popova’s practice. In
addition, Saira Lloyd’s work is informed
by her background in genetic science and
Chris Lewis-Jones was commissioned to
design and direct a performance (at the
Army & Navy Centre) in Chelmsford,
Essex, earlier this year, to mark the
unveiling of Irene Rogan’s Deep
Space light installation (as part of the
Year of Astronomy Festival). Kevin Wallace will be reading (in a West Scottish dialect) from a piece that he has written called, ‘Hame’.




 

conversations in transit

East Midlands based members of Cruiser, an international network of ‘artists who travel hopefully’, boarded a tram on the morning of Monday 18th January 2010. Cruiser are interested in the idea of  ‘dialogue as practice’. Each journey they undertake will be documented and will form part of an evolving artwork. The point of the journey on Monday 18th was to generate a thesis for an exhibition/review that will be held at Cruiser HQ on Saturday 27th February. The exhibition will be entitled ‘I can see your house form here’ and will explore the themes: utopia, dystopia, science and fiction. The artists gathered at Nottingham Contemporary at 10.00 am, where they  agreed at least some of the topics to be discussed en route, before catching a north bound tram at 11.00am. Armed with cameras, recorders and sketch pads, they  ‘conversed in transit’ all the way to Hucknall, where they alighted and walked to the Parish Church in which Lord Byron (another hopeful traveller) was buried. After a conversational lunch, they returned (conversing and recording) to the city centre. 

Artists who travelled hopefully on January 18th were Gareth Jordan , Saira Lloyd, Rob Van Beek,  Chris Lewis-Jones, Yelena Popova and Simon Withers.




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