Friday, July 11, 2003

Exhibtion : Past Standing

Past Standing
The Changing Room
Stirling, Scotland

11th July – 23 August 2003

In repsonse to an open call on the theme of memory, my work was selected for this group exhibition. I produced an e-book, Past Standing (which was then adopted as the title of the show), from a text written in response to the layering of memory that exists in private/public space in the City of London.

Download the e-Book



About Past Standing :

Two figures stand motionless in a courtyard. The City of London spins its daily routines around them as they stare fixedly at each other. Locked by a shared past but without any present, these two near strangers exist for each other only in memory yet their physical presence in this place is heightened because of their chance meeting.

Taking the hybrid public/private space of an office courtyard, this fictional narrative addresses the conflict between remembered time and real time. Moving between present and past tense, between memory and reality, the story simply does not answer the questions we ask of it. Instead it creates a space in which we can exist for a short time as we read. We join the other users of this square, spinning around the central characters, observing them from the varying perspectives of him, her and the CCTV camera.

As an artist I have been working within the city for over 6 years. For me the city exists as a place that cannot be represented solely by the map, as a formal structure of streets and squares. Rather, the city is made up of stories, personal encounters and chance occurrences that can only happen in such an arena of mass human occupancy. Space and place become confused as enhanced mobile communications allow us to frequent spaces un-rooted to the physical being. The information excess granted to us through these enhanced communication methods blurs the experiences of our everyday life. If we can no longer distinguish the landmarks of our city from that of our neighbours, do we stop understanding the discourse that is inherent between the occupiers of the place and the place itself?

Click here for The Changing Room archive

Click here for images and info from the Scottish Arts Council

The construction of the e-Book is based on an open source design by Diffusion, an online publishing imprint from Proboscis. Click here to see the Diffusion e-Book range and download software to create your own.

Past Standing was exhibited as accessible as part of Diffusion's range at The Digital Hub in Dublin, in Exhibit 3, as an example of individuals using their format to self publish. It was also available in a pre-printed format as part of the ARTitecture 2004 exhibition.


Past Standing was initially published as 'Two Figures Stand Motionless' as part of Unoccupied Territories at K & S Gallery in Berlin