You enter an industrial building, walk down some stairs and are confronted by a dark basement room. As your eyes peer in and along the floor they meet an old television set sitting there and breathing heavily.
As with painting and sculpture, the presentation of film based work is also crucial for establishing a relationship between the art and its audience. With this performance centered piece, artist Louise Amy Todd has created a work that seems to resonant perfectly with its location and its mode of display. The work entitled, ‘The Search’, was one of many intriguing film based pieces in Visual Arts11, the Northumbria University’s show at this years Free Range show at The Old Truman Brewery. For anyone who doesn’t know of the Free Range shows, they happen each year in early summer in Brick Lane. They are spread over six weeks and universities and art and design institutions display their graduate work there. It is a great place to see new contemporary art as it is the UK’s largest graduate showcase, and it is free!
With the sound of breathing subtly invading the space and the occasional strain coming from this unknown figure, I was drawn in, my attention firmly directed towards this odd performance taking place in front of me. The glowing display of the TV showed a faceless character frantically digging and searching in the unearthed mud for something.
The height of it and the framing of the image induced a feeling of unease. It wasn’t easy viewing as I found myself walking closer and closer, and crouching down just trying to see what all this effort was about. What was buried? Later on, I saw other viewers crouching and acting in a similar way.
The TV set became this living object, it become a body in motion. Whereas TV’s often become eyes, windows or heads, showing closes ups of faces and peoples views, this piece denied us this and just existed as this continual struggle.
The female figure battling to dig, to unearth and uncover something. Some unknown but vital thing, something that this unsettled and faceless girl(we presume the artist) needs to get to…
First I found myself thinking what is going on and after that just, why is this so compelling? I think it’s because the work has a great balance between the presence of the piece, (a solid thing not a projection) and the absence of the protagonist. We just get to see glimpses of her face. I think we want to see her face because we want to know this person, to see her expression, to understand her emotions, all in an effort to give meaning to why she is digging. Maybe it’s so captivating because of the contrast between the simplicity of what was being shown, and level of 
intrigue this is able to induce. It is this almost frustrating denial of resolution coupled with the strong sense of feeling and sincerity in the performance, that grips you. The digging actually appears to have purpose to this girl in the red jumper, but will more watching help us find out this reason?
That was my response to the work… did anyone else see it? what did you think?
————Related Things——————
- Shows: VISUAL ARTS11 Degree Show, Northumbria University,Free Range at The Old Truman Brewery, London July 7th-11th 2011
- Articles:
- Sites: www.louiseamytodd.blogspot.com
