Simon and Tom Bloor, 'We are just about to step out from our just-one-second-ago broken eggshell', 2007
Graphite on paper, 50 x 50cm
Courtesy the artists & MOT International, London
Photo: Rory Buckland
Chaos Venturers 2, 2007
25.4 x 20.3 cm
Digital print with pressed flowers
Courtesy the artists and f a projects, London
In an increasingly shiny and slick world, sometimes the lo-fi approach makes a welcome change. That's the theme of 'Binary Oppositions', a project that pulls together opposing subjects, processes and media among the work of ten emerging artists based in Birmingham, UK.
The project, which includes an exhibition, publication and compilation album, was launched at VIVID, Birmingham's leading media and interdisciplinary arts agency, located near the city's Custard Factory arts hub. On show were a series of pairs of photographs by Oona Luras with cryptic accompanying haiku by Justin Wiggan, creating a curious rupture between image and text. "Through media as diverse as drawing, handcrafts, collage, digital imagery, sculpture, photography, film and animation, the exhibition casually raises questions about tradition and progress, folklore and technology, myth and rationalism, modernity and post-modernity," explains 'Binary Oppositions' curator Matt Price.
All of the 10 artists and 20 musical acts from England's second city were born between the early 70s and 80s, an era that heralded the decline of the analogue and the rise of digital culture - themes running throughout the project. Kate Pemberton uses traditional handcrafts to depict the world of computers and electronics while Mike Johnston's pieces equally encapsulate the ethos of the exhibition and its emphasis on oppositional themes by using an old ZX Spectrum to transform laboriously made pen drawings into binary code before animating them. The exhibition also includes works by Simon and Tom Bloor, Karin Kihlberg and Reuben Henry and Juneau/Projects/ - with the latter presenting flower pressings mixed with computer-generated imagery.
Mike Johnston, 'Sir Clive Sinclair', 2004
Sinclair print, 10 x 9cm
Courtesy the artist
Photo: Rory Buckland
Several of the participating visual artists have contributed to the compendium of electronic music, sonic art and audio curiosities released by independent record label Static Caravan to accompany the project, drawing on the themes of the exhibition, namely analogue and digital, nostalgia and newness, the hand-made and the industrially-produced, and the manual and the electric. Contributions come from established acts and newcomers including Broadcast, Pram, Seeland, Magnétophone, Misty's Big Adventure, Shady Bard and the Modified Toy Orchestra.
During the launch night, co-hosted by VIVID and Fused magazine, Mike Johnston (aka Mike In Mono) performed myriad synthetic bleeps and beats - robot-pop symphonies akin to Kraftwerk re-imagined for the 21st Century - accompanied by striking projections provided by Scott Johnston. Following a set by Micronormous, doTb offered a Binary mash-up DJ set to an audience of over 200 people.
An exercise in taking Birmingham-based artists directly to a European marketplace, 'Binary Oppositions' is now on show at CITRIC Gallery, Brescia until 3 January 2008.
Simon Harper
A freelance arts journalist and editor, Simon Harper currently writes for the Birmingham Post, TEN4 magazine and 4Talent West Midlands. He specialises as a feature writer and reviewer, reporting on the creative industries in the West Midlands, particularly in relation to the region's emerging musicians, artists and designers.
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