Ongoing bodies : Syndrome de Paris Suite

Working collaboratively, Simone Hutchinson, Alexander Kennedy and Conal McStravick will develop a moving image and sound installation derived from a co-authored text.

(SAC) Ongoing bodies: Syndrome de Paris Suite re-contextualises a series of performances filmed at CCA and Glasgow School of Art, in 2010.

The footage explores ideas of Orientalism and gender sourcing Japanese Kabuki Opera, Heron Maiden, where an Onnagata, (male actor in female role) rises mechanically through the stage, Samuel Beckett’s ‘ballet’ Quad, 1981 and the body performances of artist Dan Graham as a means to animate and embody critical language. Sound combines narrated texts on the production of knowledge within the institution and the other as an agent of change to rename and negotiate boundaries within representation and language.

The installation presents a series of domestic and gallery monitors displayed on plinths and presentation units, situated between an institutional and shop display. Using these modes of representation as a starting point, the installation utilises the presence of the viewer in the space, triggered by sensors in the gallery, to regulate and ‘edit’ the situation and experience of the work.

Simone Hutchinson (born Middlesborough) is currently researching a PhD in English Literature investigating the politics and aesthetics of work and labour in fiction, at the University of Glasgow.

Alexander Kennedy (born Stirling) currently manages a small Glasgow-based publishing press, Daat Press. He has worked for a number of years as a critic and art historian at University of Glasgow and Edinburgh College of Art.

Conal McStravick (born Lurgan) is an artist based in London who works with moving image, text and installation. Graduating from Glasgow School of Art in 2005, he served on Transmission Gallery Committee until 2009 and participated in LUX Associate Artists Programme 2011.