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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

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