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Doug Foster:
Only Human
10 - 23 September 2009
The warm, pulsing glow of a moving image bleeds vibrant life into the dark heart of a large metal box.
A sequence of events unfolds rhythmically inside the structure. The action recycles seamlessly, looping into a spiral narrative that becomes more lucid with each repetition. The compelling beauty and coercive rhythm of the imagery is mesmerizing.
Meanwhile... a swirling, blue planet swings smoothly about its blazing anchor.
A brash spring tide heaves foaming abuse upon a crumbling harbour wall.
A field of giant blooms bend their yellow crowns to the arc of a summer sun.
A thin, grey woman in a starched white bed draws her last shallow breaths from an insistent machine.
The cycles of nature continue about us.
‘Breather’ uses a novel stereoscopic technique to immerse the viewer in a mesmerising scene of desperation that appears to take place within the water-filled confines of a rusty steel-plate box. It is part sculpture, part film and part optical illusion. Its cyclical, mantra-like narrative pits human tenacity against human vulnerability.
The viewer is confronted by a large, rusty metal box. A pair of glazed eye-ports offers the only access to the interior. Undulating water seems to fill most of the box. Suddenly, a woman’s head breaks the surface. She looks tired and distressed. As she gasps for air, bubbles disrupt the gentle ripples in front of her. She takes a huge last breath and plunges under the water. After a few seconds she rises to the surface again...
A second pair of eye-ports, lower down on the box, reveals the woman’s predicament. A young man seems to be trapped underwater in a kneeling position. He releases a burst of bubbles from his mouth and nose. This prompts the woman to sink down to him. She cups his chin in her hand, presses her mouth to his and breathes air into his empty lungs. The woman rises to the surface again...
The nature of the torture/experiment/trial is left unexplained, as is the relationship between the man and the woman. Are they lovers, strangers or mother and son?
Part film, part sculpture, part geometric puzzle with a cyclical, ‘Möbius strip’ structure, ‘BOB’ indulges our innate appetite for symmetry and rhythm by following the relentless footsteps of a man in a repetitive rut.
A sweaty, anxious looking man in a drab dressing gown and pyjama trousers hurries along a seemingly endless corridor in some kind of institution. His measured paces propel him swiftly through the thick arches that support the flaking walls and mouldy ceiling of the part-tiled passageway. Equidistant, between the identical arches, identical grilled skylights illuminate facing pairs of identical steel doors. The man’s slippered feet flip-flop briskly over the green and cream chessboard of the linoleum floor, yet he never seems to step on a green tile.
He notices another, identical figure striding towards him and quickly swaps his battered suitcase from one hand to the other. The doppelgänger does the same with his own battered suitcase. The two men take a synchronised side-step and skim past each other in the narrow confines of an arch. Somehow, both manage to avoid stepping on a green tile.
The new sweaty, anxious man hurries along the seemingly endless corridor...
The fact that there are an infinite number of BOBs walking this corridor becomes obvious early on. It may take a little longer to work out whether we are following one BOB on his endless journey or following alternate BOBs up and down the same small section of corridor.
Part sculpture, part film, part sarcophagus, ‘Frozen’ takes the form of an inspection window looking into a revolving cryonic preservation chamber. It raises questions about the quest to conquer death and the motives of those involved.
Cryonic preservation is used as a narrative device in countless science fiction stories, but the reality raises far more complex issues. Nobody that submits themselves to the process has any guarantee that they will ever be revived.
They have faith in science and they invest heavily in the possibility of a new future. Were the seven people on the turn table frozen yesterday or fifty years ago? Are they being monitored or have they been abandoned? If they are ever revived and cured of their terminal illnesses, how will they integrate into a future society? How much of their memory and personality will survive?
'Freezer is a bay from the cryonic turntable seen in 'Frozen', designed to be mounted on the owner's wall so that the headrest lines up with the owners head.
The ‘Mirror in The Bathroom’ portraits fully exploit the potential of the ‘Folding Stereoscopic Viewer’ to create a real sense of human presence. We see each subject from her own point of view as she looks at herself in her bathroom mirror.
The spatial arrangement and tactile nature of the three-dimensional images serve to reinforce the connection between the viewer and the viewed.
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