-Supermarkets
-Packing houses - where fruit/veg gets sorted as they move across conveyor belts
-Biosecurity, and irradiation of imported produce; processes of pest control and systems of protecting our ecosystem
-Airports and luggage screening, 'declare or dispose'
-GMO - science, investigation/intervention into nature
-X rays - RISK that cannot be seen, dangers, implied 'brokenness'
-Treadmills - a lot of people think that these are treadmills when they first encounter it. Fair enough - they do look extremely similar. I think treadmills symbolise a gruelling contemporary obsession with, and pursuit of, a glorified idea of 'health'.
-Judith Darragh calls these works 'Contemporary Still Lifes'; a tribute to traditional still life paintings (particularly Flemish) which conventionally depict fresh produce and often subtly indicated social class. The conveyors also have their own inbuilt 'gold frames!'
-I find it amusing that these could be called 'moving image' works - a static image, but on an animated moving surface
-Surveillance technology (sensors, detecting movement)
-Screen print - the significance of the 'screen'; 'screening' can refer to security
-The sensors have not been altered in any way for the installation, the element of their interactiveness is a happy coincidence. They are designed to respond to the items on the supermarket counter as they move along, so that they stop at the edge by the cashier with the scanner. To have the walking viewer activate and determine this movement literally puts them, unawares, into the position of an item from the supermarket. A passive commodity, defined by their financial value, passing between the hands of larger forces...
-The black background relates to film reels - of both radiographic images, negatives of film photography, and traditional motion picture reels; all processes which are now mostly digital. In many ways the experience of shopping too is becoming digital...
-The direction of the movement is a significant and deliberate decision. The images are not moving upwards - which would imply growing up from the ground like a plant, or reference scrolling film credits. Rather, this conventional direction is turned upside down, and they are moving downwards - which gives the impression of coming towards, rather than away from, the viewer. This implies the ease with which food arrives via the supermarket, almost 'falling from the sky', implying a sense of ignorance / naivety about where our food comes from, and possibly also the mysterious corporations at the top of the food chain - 'above' us and out of sight.
-The direction of the movement also becomes a reference to slot machines, gambling - some winning it all, while almost everyone else loses it all. Gambling with our future, and the GMO crops on which we are placing our bets. Select images can be lined up in a row, bringing in all the winning money...
-Corn and soy - dominating the world's farmed crops. Despite the diversity of the thousands of edible plant species on this planet, a huge majority of plants grown for consumption come from these two crops, alongside rice and wheat. This idea of uneven distribution speaks also about social issues, wealth and inequality - hunger and poverty exist in the same world as excess food waste and an obesity epidemic.
-Smartphones - rectangular, black technology (a sort of monolithic version); the movement imitates the gesture of 'scrolling,' while the images reinforce this, relating to the huge current trend / subculture of images of healthy food posted and shared on social media
-Food/plants 'made human' - via their scale, being 'portrait', and vertical upright, eye level, the connection to body parts via radiography, the inescapable Arcimboldo reference
-Hanging tapestries (e.g. Pierre Bonnard's 'Femmes au jardin' panels in D'orsay is one of my favourite artworks - four long panels displayed together) and other quadtych artworks that reference the seasons, such as Arcimboldo's portraits - this idea of four divisions also makes me think of four suites of playing cards (more gambling connotations)
-They relate back to a hands-on scrolling canvas that I made last year. The feedback I received at the time was that it was my most successful work of the semester, and my tutor and examiner were disappointed that I didn't make more of these and develop the idea further - until now!
-Word play of 'conveyor' - the work interrogates art's ability to convey messages/ideas
-Seasonality, and the rotation of seasons...
