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Beatrice Gibson – Crippled Symmetries

Collective Gallery, Edinburgh until October 4th
Four stars

The noise of money is everywhere in the two films by Beatrice Gibson that make up the London-based artist's Crippled Symmetries show for this year's Edinburgh Art Festival. Where F for Fibonacci juxtaposes archive footage of a mercurial Karlheinz Stockhausen and images of Wall Street city boys at play with an eleven year old boy's computer-generated images of a world owned by fictional superhero, Mr Money, the newly commissioned Solo for Rich Man finds another eleven year old ruffling wads of dosh and dropping coins with composer Anton Lukoszeveize in a Shoreditch adventure playground.

Both films are inspired by William Gaddis' 1975 novel, JR, in which an eleven year old boy creates the biggest financial empire on the planet with the unwitting help of his school's resident composer, Gibson's films pits notions of progressive education, abstract composition and work by Fluxus artist George Maciuna with the real racket going on in the City.

In physical terms, such counterpoints point up how a mainstream economy can be disrupted by throwing a sonic spanner in the works. As far as monopolies go, however, kids rool the skool every time.

The List, August 2015

ends

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