AS YOU WERE was a multi-disciplinary production and installation that involved a critical examination of militaristic power relations and their sublimation by fashion and the wider culture industry. Uniforms and a modular mise-en-scene served as a means of supressing individuality, concealing hierarchy and gender, and as symbolic devices.

AS YOU WERE acted as an autonomous territory or arena for the examination of disciplinary power and its means of conditioning behaviour through modes of production and consumption. It took the form of a multi-disciplinary art production by the collective Opera Autonoma, directed by Craig Mulholland, Sukaina Kubba and Carmel O’Brien, functioning both as a live performance event, static multi-media installation and video work. Opera Autonoma, is an artist collective founded by Craig Mulholland in 2013, that seeks to interface disparate disciplines using modular approaches to production. Opera Autonoma were recipients of the Open Fund for Glasgow International 2014, and along with additional RDF funding from The Glasgow School of Art, manifested their first production Gymnasia, directed by Craig Mulholland.  This project, presented as an installation consolidating 24 works or components, was the resulting output from research and development by Opera Autonoma with Craig Mulholland as the principle investigator. As part of the wider Glasgow International Art Festival 2016 it was delivered as a partnership between Koppe Astner, Vitrine London and the GI 2016 Cultural Programme. The GI programme is a biennale event providing a world-class, international showcase and networking context for over 90 events and 80 exhibitions. Deepen and develop artistic discourse between locally and internationally based artists and audiences through talks, events and visits. AS YOU WERE will be further expanded through the production of a video/audio archive work to be screened in Scotland, internationally and online. The concept emerges from a continuing dialogue with artists Sukaina Kubba and designer Carmel O’Brien, exploring intersections between painting, design, AV, 3D printing and installation.

• Author