Skip to main content

Counterpoint

Talbot Rice Gallery until October 18th
Three stars
Waiting plays a big part in the Talbot Rice's compendium of eight
relatively off-piste artists for their EAF show. Nowhere is this more
evident than in Ellie Harrison's 'After The Revolution, Who Will clean
Up The Mess?' an installation of four confetti cannons which may or may
not be detonated on September 18th this year at a post-referendum party
ONLY if there is a Yes vote.  This is something Ross Birrell's
uncertainty-based works also point too in their pointers to Heisenberg
and Mallarme's poem, A Dice Throw.

If Harrison's specially commissioned piece in search of an audience for
a once in a lifetime event isn't enough motivation for the accompanying
all-night party to go with a bang, one might turn to
Michelle Hannah's ongoing fantasy-wish-fulfilment fascination with
retro-futuristic electronic torch ballads and the vogue for ice-cool
dystopian iconography that defined the accompanying rise of the pop
video. In 'Statue', Hannah looks to the Talbot Rice's own surroundings
to give her work the image of classicist gravitas.

Shona Macnaughton's quest for narrative looks to Jean Genet's play, The
Maids, for a self-reflexive video performance flanked by boardroom
tables that hint of brainstorms past. Craig Mulholland's bowling
alley-styled 'Potemkin Funktion' is a similarly unpopulated, with the
accompanying vocal samples giving off the air of an end of the world
amusement arcade. Alec Finlay's wicker bee-hive constructions and the
accompanying recording of him reading his 'Global Oracle (Navstar
satellites' is a more rural retreat than Keith Farquhar's aluminium and
corrugated iron constructions below.

If Andrew Miller's photographs look even more barren, his wooden
construction, 'Refraction' looks imported from an adventure playground,
and is as good a place as any to sprawl over and use as a viewing post
for forthcoming performances by Jeans & MacDonald, Alexa Hare and
Ortonandon. Whatever happens next, fireworks are inevitable.

The List, August 2014




ends

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ron Butlin - The Sound of My Voice

When Ron Butlin saw a man who’d just asked him the time throw himself under a train on the Paris Metro, it was a turning point in how his 1987 novel, The Sound Of My Voice, would turn out. Twenty years on, Butlin’s tale of suburban family man Morris Magellan’s existential crisis and his subsequent slide into alcoholism is regarded as a lost classic. Prime material, then, for the very intimate stage adaptation which opens in the Citizens Theatre’s tiny Stalls Studio tonight. “I had this friend in London who was an alcoholic,” Butlin recalls. “He would go off to work in the civil service in the morning looking absolutely immaculate. Then at night we’d meet, and he’s get mega-blootered, then go home and continue drinking and end up in a really bad state. I remember staying over one night, and he’d emerge from his room looking immaculate again. There was this huge contrast between what was going on outside and what was going on inside.” We’re sitting in a café on Edinburgh’s south sid

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) 1. THE STONE ROSES    Don’t Stop ( Silvertone   ORE   1989) The trip didn’t quite start here for what sounds like Waterfall played backwards on The Stone Roses’ era-defining eponymous debut album, but it sounds

Big Gold Dreams – A Story of Scottish Independent Music 1977-1989

Disc 1 1. THE REZILLOS (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures (12/77)  2. THE EXILE Hooked On You (8/77) 3. DRIVE Jerkin’ (8/77) 4. VALVES Robot Love (9/77) 5. P.V.C. 2 Put You In The Picture (10/77) 6. JOHNNY & THE SELF ABUSERS Dead Vandals (11/77) 7. BEE BEE CEE You Gotta Know Girl (11/77) 8. SUBS Gimme Your Heart (2/78) 9. SKIDS Reasons (No Bad NB 1, 4/78) 10. FINGERPRINTZ Dancing With Myself (1/79)  11. THE ZIPS Take Me Down (4/79) 12. ANOTHER PRETTY FACE All The Boys Love Carrie (5/79)  13. VISITORS Electric Heat (5/79) 14. JOLT See Saw (6/79) 15. SIMPLE MINDS Chelsea Girl (6/79) 16. SHAKE Culture Shock (7/79) 17. HEADBOYS The Shape Of Things To Come (7/79) 18. FIRE EXIT Time Wall (8/79) 19. FREEZE Paranoia (9/79) 20. FAKES Sylvia Clarke (9/79) 21. TPI She’s Too Clever For Me (10/79) 22. FUN 4 Singing In The Showers (11/79) 23. FLOWERS Confessions (12/79) 24. TV21 Playing With Fire (4/80) 25. ALEX FERGUSSON Stay With Me Tonight (1980) 1. THE REZILL