Night and Day, Mic/Amp, Fan/Paper/Fan
by John Wood and Paul Harrison

Synopsis:
Night and Day, Fan/paper/fan and Mic/amp continue the artists' ongoing investigations into architecture, performance, drawing, sculpture and film.
These commissions suggest a range of new developments for Wood and Harrison in both formal and conceptual terms. Well known for their performance to camera, the artists are largely absent from these works.
Music and dance are the oblique subjects of Mic/amp, and Fan/paper/fan. Mic/amp shows a guitar amplifier in an empty space and a microphone swinging into shot, triggering a feedback loop. As the pendulum loses momentum, the microphone settles in front of the amp, producing a single musical note. In Fan/paper/fan, an upright piece of paper is precariously supported between the two opposing air currents supplied by electric fans.
Night and Day takes the viewer through the possible history of a room. Broken into a series of brief episodes, each an imagined use of the space, as a factory, a warehouse, an office; every section begins in darkness, a light source is activated, a simple event occurs and the light is extinguished. Combining static and moving camera shots and exploiting fast-paced editing and additional sound, this work is at once elegant, chaotic, melancholic and comedic.
Details:
Year | 2008 |
---|---|
Duration | Various 3 - 24 minutes |
Medium | Single screen video projections |
Original format | HDV (Mic/Amp - DV) |
Screening format | MPEG-2 DVD / Media Player |
Aspect ratio | 16:9 (Mic/Amp 4:3) |
Audio | Yes |
Colour / B&W | Colour |
Screens | 1 |
Credits:
Commissioned by Capture5, CAPTURE’s commissioning fund and produced in association with Picture This.
Screening history:
17 February - 16 May 2010
University of California Santa Barbara, USA
Von Bartha Garage, Basel, Switzerland
13 November 2009 - 23 January 2010
Chateau de Rochechouart, Rochechouart, France
04 July - 21 September 2009
Vera Cortes art Agency, Lisbon, Portugal
29 May - 25 July 2009
Ikon, Birmingham, UK
08 April - 25 May 2009
Studiotrisorio, Rome, Italy
04 February 2009
Picture This, Bristol, UK
19 January - 23 February 2008
Artists
John Wood and Paul Harrison
John Wood and Paul Harrison make screen-based works that often manipulate familiar objects, giving rise to imaginative associations.
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