My research is a practice-based epistemological inquiry, dealing with themes of knowledge & belief. It's an investigation into the limits of our ability to process and communicate knowledge, and the belief we place in this. I've worked with a range of media particularly performance to video. These simple and absurd actions & monologues create situations of questionable origin to challenge the reliability of the author and our faith in emotional communication & received wisdom.
Research questions:
To what limits can we maintain faith in scientific knowledge & rational thought as ideological saviours in a post-spiritual world?
What self-preservation strategies do we employ to retain a retreat to the irrational if absolute answers can’t be found?
How can we reflect on these questions in a discursive & meaningful way?
This research began with attempts to understand how we square our sense of a public self with an inner monologue. In works such as Jetsam, 1995 & Message to my Best Friend, 2000 an immediate approach and confessional tone is used to explore ideas of the performed self.
The belief we want to have in lens-based imagery to deliver a faithful representation of reality is part of my overarching interest in the supposed potential of technology to deliver science’s promise of a rational understanding of the universe. Lo-fi technology and amateur aesthetics seek to create an sense of humorous pathos in the impossibility of this project. Encyclopaedia, 2000, takes this to an absurd conclusion.
The absurd recurs in my work, undermining the gravity of its subject. In works such as: Come in like this..., How I would probably do it, 2004, Everything is just as you see it, 2008, and Welcome & Apologies/Congratulations & Goodbye, 2012, propositions are made but no sensible conclusions are reached, because none are possible. This Beckettian approach extends to sculptural works such as In some ways it is,..., 2008, I am too complex,..., 2009, & Silent dog whistles, 2014.
Recently, and supported by Reading Landscape Research Group, I’ve re-framed my subject in relation to a rural context. My use of lens-based media has diverged, from the futility of representing an imagined self, to the challenge of describing a mythologised landscape. I’ve been exploring this through such photographic tropes & conventions as the romantic, the sublime and the taxonomical.
I’ve also been testing methods to introduce into my visual art practice, aspects of my long-standing parallel practice as a producer of experimental electronic music. This is at an early stage but has been important to the development of new work.
My work has been shown widely across the UK and internationally, and is represented in Arts Council England, City of Hull and City of Glasgow Collections. In 2002 I was selected for the inaugural Jerwood Platform award. In 2003 I was short-listed for the Beck's Futures Prize.
I teach in the Dept of Sculpture & Environmental Art, and was formerly Pathway Leader for MLitt Sculpture. From 2006-2011, I was a SoFA Researcher and co-edited the online Open Source research journal http://www.artandresearch.org.uk with Dr Ross Birrell. From 2010-2017, I also taught on the Intermedia programme at Edinburgh College of Art. I’ve been Visiting Lecturer at numerous Art Schools nationally and internationally and from 2009-2011 was External Examiner for MA Digital Arts and MA Photographic Studies at Norwich University College of the Arts.
