Commissioned and performed for the 53rd Venice Biennale.
A collection of instruments that deploy security and surveillance technologies in unusual and playful contexts, prompting visitors to reflect on their personal sense of security and their relationship with public fears (of petty crime, terrorism, etc.). The first instrument to be built is a steel harp with strings of razor wire, which requires the harpist to wear protective gauntlets to play it.
Project documentation.
‘Talking Heads’ are short presentations by artists to camera about their practice and approaches to making. The ‘Talking Heads’ films are part of the Agency’s ‘Documentation Bank’ Collection, which consists of an extensive range of artists’ ‘Talking Heads’ films, documentation of artists’ works and a selection of Agency projects: http://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/resources/collections/documentation-bank.
Looks at a wide range of performance and visual artists, at popular TV shows and movies, and at our day-to-day encounters with surveillance, rooting its arguments in an accessible reading of cultural theory.
Essays by Richard Grayson and Matt Adams. Documentation of an ambulatory work commissioned by the De La Warr Pavilion for the Venice Biennale 2009. This project is based on real world events and is an explicit engagement with political questions. Participants are invited to assume the role of Ulrike or Eamon and make a walk through the city while receiving phone calls. The experience culminates with an interview in a hidden room.
Radio play produced for the collective listening in public places.
This article analyzes the question of where the dominant mode of production lies – on the screen, where action and a singular character identity cohere, or behind the screen, where the embodied difference of the actors is continually prioritized.