Matthew Harrison

WORK IN PROGRESS: Colin Pillinger Desk Name Plaque. height 6cm, width 35cm, depth 10cm. (click for next image…)

 

WORK IN PROGRESS: Colin Pillinger Desk Name Plaque. height 6cm, width 35cm, depth 10cm. (click for next image…)

 

WORK IN PROGRESS
Colin Pillinger Desk Name Plaque
height 6cm, width 35cm, depth 10cm.
Investment Cast Aluminium, various exotic hard wood veneers, hard woods, fixings, disposable camera.

I am currently engaged in a project that involves professor Colin Pillinger, he was the lead scientist in charge of the Beagle 2 probe launched to Mars in 2003. I am replicating the events of the Beagle 2 mission in an earth bound project. I have made a desk name plaque for professor Pillinger that I will post to him. Attached to which is a disposable camera and a request to take pictures of his new name plaque positioned on his desk and to then return the camera to me.

The name plaque aesthetic and concept references the GDR souvenirs and conversation pieces exchanged between East German officials and visitors to the republic. These gifts were normally objects intended to become a feature of the recipient’s desk. Some would be decorated with every kind of symbol close to a communist’s heart; others would be politically neutral, whilst it honoured the host or guest their political stance was not necessarily being shared. Many of these visits operated below an official diplomatic level, the exchanged gifts are often the only historical evidence of the meeting.

In expectation of the photographs, I will make a series of wall-mounted box frames in which to show the returned images. The construction of the boxes will be carefully considered; the aesthetic and construction details will reference both the Beagle 2 probe and HMS Beagle, Darwin’s ship used in his voyages (the ship being the inspiration for the probe’s name).
If I do not receive anything back from Professor Pillinger the boxes will be shown without the photographs, replicating the eventual failure of the Beagle 2 probe to send data back.

At all stages the project will be documented and interpreted from the research, correspondence, construction and delivery to its final realisation. This collection of information may well feature in the work or possibly be collected in some form of small publication.

Statement
Formed through conceptual rigour and strategy my practice develops through an involved process of merciless art direction. It is then carefully crafted with an attention to detail that can border on the obsessive.

It is vital my ideas are located firmly at the core of the objects and projects I produce. I work hard to avoid attaching or shoehorning surplus material in to them. Works are made as something not made about something.

The work operates at the periphery, like a prop or prototype contained within a larger event. Some are installed precisely on a threshold; others are shifting further from it. They are able to leak from their usual spaces, and also extend out of the normal finite time scale associated with showing work. With this leakage from normal duration and site, works become absorbed in to the ‘real world’, this transition allows its status to be examined.

Many objects produced within my practice find their way into the world as a speculative gift. The gift is a device. Its owner and the subsequent site of the work become implicated in its systems and life.

Contact

Email Matthew Harrison