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Practical Mechanics
Gallery Press Release - page 2
Sept 2006
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Alongside this work Cove will present video. He has filmed a record player from an aerial view and then digitally rotated the film at exactly the same speed as the record plays, which produces footage of an apparently stationary record with the turn-table and its surroundings rotating at 33.1/3 rpm. In effect the needle circumnavigates the record allowing the centre of the record to be read. The LP’s title is ‘Conversations Regarding the Future of Architecture’ interviews with leading American architects from 1956 (includes Mies Van Der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Philip Johnson etc). The relationship between an outdated audio analogue technology and a modern digital visual one is important. This LP has been selected in part because the foretelling of the future from a 50 year old perspective highlights the optimism that existed before Modernist ideals were fully re-evaluated. This manipulation attempts to emphasise the time gap and consequently the shift in thinking in the last half-century. In effect the message is clear and consistent but the context and the medium changes.
Cove’s interest in exploring social expectation through architecture is central to his work. Earlier works have focused on fantastical schemes and proposals, influenced by Archigram, the Italian group Superstudio and the architect Lebbeus Woods going far beyond everyday perceptions of environment and social order. Within this newly commissioned body of work Cove follows two conflicting urges: the one to create a consistently seductive representation of utopia and the other is to indulge in the rebellion and rejection of it. Humanised individuality struggling against the smooth imposition of too much order. Other works will be displayed around the framework of the rooms within the gallery, all referencing Cove’s contemplative relationship with the plastic environment.
Ben Cove was born in 1974 and currently lives and works in London. He studied Architecture at the University of Nottingham (1993-1996) and Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University (1998-2001). Since his graduation he has taken part in numerous exhibitions around the UK. In 2004 he had a solo exhibition ‘New Plastic Universal’ presented at Castlefield Gallery, Manchester and more recently he was selected as a finalist for 2006 Celeste Art Prize earlier this year. Cove is presently taking part in ACME Studio's Fire Station residency programme; a research and development placement for 2.5 years. |
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