Op-Film: An Archaeology of Optics

Exposición / Gasworks / 155 Vauxhall Street / London, London, City of, Reino Unido
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Cuándo:
27 abr de 2017 - 25 jun de 2017

Inauguración:
26 abr de 2017 / 18:30

Organizada por:
Gasworks

Artistas participantes:
Filipa César, Louis Henderson

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Etiquetas
Instalacion  Instalacion en London, City of  Video arte  Video arte en London, City of 

       

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Descripción de la Exposición

Gasworks presents Op-Film: An Archaeology of Optics, a collaborative exhibition by artists and filmmakers Filipa César and Louis Henderson. The exhibition comprises a newly commissioned film and installation based on ongoing research that explores how optical technologies of military and colonial design-from lighthouse Fresnel lenses to global satellite navigation systems-both inform and are informed by Western models of knowledge. Taking a critical approach to the ideologies behind the development of these instruments of guidance and surveillance, the artists consider how imperial gestures of discovery, revelation and possession are embedded in associations between seeing and understanding, light projection and enlightenment. The film tracks Fresnel lenses from their site of production to their exhibition in a museum of lighthouses and navigational devices. It also examines the diverse social contexts in which optics are implicated, contrasting the system of triangular trade that followed the first European arrivals in the “New World” with the political potential seen in Op art in post-revolutionary Cuba. Incorporating 16mm celluloid images, digital desktop captures and 3D CGI, the film also maps a technological trajectory: from historical methods of optical navigation to new algorithms of locating, from singular projection to multi-perspectival satellitic visions. Registering these technical advances progressively through their film’s materials and means of production, the artists develop what they describe as “a cinema of affect, a cinema of experience-an Op-Film.” Alongside this work, an installation collages together key documentary materials that underpin their research to date, including archival images, oceanic charts, lighthouse blueprints, lights and fragments of Fresnel lenses. Op-Film: An Archaeology of Optics is co-commissioned by Gasworks and Contour Biennale 8, Mechelen and supported by Arts Council England, Fluxus Art Projects, Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art and the Gulbenkian Foundation.

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