BAD TRANSLATION: FORMOSA - JUNEAU PROJECTS
Date 2009/11/11 16:16:44 | Topic: Crate Programme
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LAUNCH EVENT: 13/11/09 6-9PM AT THE SHELL GROTTO, GROTTO HILL, MARGATE, CT9 2BU
EXHIBITION THE OPENS: 15/11/09 AND 19-22/11/09 12-5PM AT CRATE PROJECT SPACE
Crate has commissioned Juneau Projects to create a new live work for Margate’s famous Shell Grotto. The piece, entitled ‘Formosa’ (the former name for Taiwan - from the Portuguese word for ‘beautiful’), builds upon the artists' ongoing interests in both vernacular architecture and in the potential for crossover between musical performance and artistic production.
It takes as its starting point the enigmatic history of the Grotto and its documented use as a place for séances, also considering the use of electrical technology as a means for recording paranormal activity.
The underground Grotto, in which 4.6 million shells form an uninterrupted 2000sqft mosaic of patterns and symbols, was discovered in 1835 by James Newlove when he lowered his son into a hole that appeared as they were digging a duck pond. Its original purpose is still the subject of much speculation: It has been described variously as a pagan temple, a Georgian folly and the meeting place for a secret cult.
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‘Formosa’ does not offer any conclusions about the ‘true purpose’ of the Grotto. Instead, it draws on the idea that the Grotto is a place where ideas and sensibilities intersect, falling somewhere between a gig where the performers aren’t immediately apparent and a post-apocalyptic gallery where troglodyte survivors make sculptures out of audio-visual equipment whose practical purpose has become obscured by the passing of time. The work will use audio playback from obsolete data cassettes to generate sounds which reverberate throughout the Grotto’s labyrinth of underground tunnels. These sounds will be processed digitally to trigger hallucinatory visuals which will animate the shell walls.
This installation is the latest in a line of works by Juneau Projects which explore the relationship between modern technology and folk and pagan traditions, finding untapped ritual or symbolic potential in objects that might normally be regarded as purely functional.
In their earliest work, Juneau Projects ritually destroyed mobile phones, portable CD players and microphones by drill, flame and shredder. The technology they destroyed produced playback as it ‘died’, ‘screaming’ in its final seconds. It was hard to determine whether these acts were exorcisms – aimed at expelling the ‘ghost’ from the machine – or a luddite torture fantasies, savagely mocking the idea that technology’s usefulness might provide security against nature, ritual or human vengeance.
Later work has suggested a gentler marriage of folk and pagan traditions with modern technologies. ‘Trappencamp’, the monument the pair were commissioned to produce for Tate Britain last year, was a paradoxical ‘ruin’, cut from plywood and emblazoned with heraldry that had clearly been generated using computer software. This new work shares with that piece an interest in obsolescence as a signifier of authenticity – a point which will be emphasised by the installation’s relocation from the Grotto to Crate’s Project Space after the 13th.
Juneau Projects was formed in 2001 as a collaborative practice by Ben Sadler and Philip Duckworth. Based in Birmingham, they have exhibited nationwide and internationally.
Their first solo exhibition took place at the Showroom, London in 2004, followed by exhibitions at FA Projects, London. They have a longstanding working relationship with Grizedale Arts in Cumbria, which has led to projects in the UK, USA and Japan. They were also included in the British Art Show 6 organised by the Hayward in 2005. Recent exhibitions include a project for the Art Now Sculpture Court at Tate Britain, and 'Don't Stop Believing', which is at Quad, Derby until 15th November 2009.
Formosa is part of Bad Translation, a contemporary art programme organised for Crate by Matthew de Pulford. The programme is supported by Arts Council England and Kent County Council.
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