ARTWORKS


"HUNTER/ GATHERER - LAST POSITION RECEIVED" 2011 

(radio play/sonic installation)



Last Position Received

90°00'00.00° north
180°00'00.00° west


Floating on a barren sheet of ice, a temporary island for their existence, Hunter/ Gatherer deliberate their future fate. Banished by nature, trapped in a white-out delusion, their only goal is survival. Is existence futile?

For one night only, The Rupture Series will broadcast Hunter/Gatherer’s Last Position Received, an intercepted radio transmission telling the fictional story of the deep sea soul trawler Artifishal and its hardy crew (Hunter/Gatherer) who embark upon an expedition from the northern port town of Hull, UK. The transmission recounts their search for the anti arctic, the point of departure of all known souls where a being will be able gain true spiritual enlightenment.

The intercepted transmission sees the two lead characters, the Captain (Gatherer) and his mutinous Quarter Master (Hunter), trapped in a conflicting duality as the ship they began their journey on is sinking from its solidified state within the pack ice into the obsidian ocean.

For this event, the artists will present a surround sound installation of the transmission accompanied by theatrical assemblage sculpture. To coincide with the live gallery broadcast, the interception will be transmitted by Resonance FM, enabling the unbeknown subjects to be heard beyond the confinements of the exhibition.

Hunter/ Gatherer is a collaboration between artists Alexander Wilson and Daniel Pickles. Wilson and Pickles live in London and Bristol respectively and wrote the main body of the script of Last Transmission Received via text message. Like their Hunter/Gatherer counterparts, the artists are displaced 'Northerners'.

 



"FREE GIFT II" 2010

(interactive installation @ Affordable art fair)



"FREE GIFT" 2010

(interactive installation)






“Free Gift” is an ephemeral work within an interactive installation. The photo booth structure offers a ubiquitous space from which the viewer individually receives their ‘free gift’, until the point where they receive it, they do not know what it is or what to expect, as one-way mirror is implement to ensure the viewer cannot engage with the work until activated.

Rather than take a photo, the booth was manipulated to ‘bleach’ the viewer’s eyes temporarily with the word ‘gift’. This provides an illusion that is personal to the individual; no one else can see the same version, yet they could in theory discuss their experience afterward. The image, alike to when we stare at a bright light or camera flash provides an afterimage which alternates between many colours our retina’s pick up when exposed to bright light, an almost ‘trippy’ effect.

The works ephemeral imposition functions to question the nature of a free gift, ‘something for nothing’, and highlight the arrogance of the artist and the struggle of form to communicate ideas.


"Mutt-TV Presents // Schrodinger's Humdinger" 2010
(interactive installation)













MUTT-TV - ALEXANDER WILSON and ROBIN REEDER
“Mutt-TV presents // Schrodinger’s Humdinger”

A thought experiment concerned with failing theory. It is manifested as a sci-fi interactive installation posing the question of ‘uncertainty’ of the duality between creation and destruction. The main installation is named the Pizza ‘Mutt’, this is where the interactive thought experiment takes place.

Once the viewer enters the Pizza ‘Mutt’ this triggers a series of events, Pollock being executed, the tate exploding, the zoom from the earth, to our universe, our galaxy, which reveals itself upon a slice of pizza. The idea is linked with the infinite and the uncertain, referencing ‘science fiction’ as well as ‘fact’. The ideas of narcissism see the muttist’s (mutt-tv founders) devouring the pizza(s) containing their created galaxy. The point is that everything/anything is possible as nothing is certain, Pollock can be simultaneously alive and dead at the same time in different aspects of space-time.

Outside the Pizza Mutt is the workings of the thought experiment, namely adopted physicians theory in attempt to explain the concept as truth.
Who knows, it could be.



"Mutt-TV Presents Wreslemania 2 w/1" 2010

(video performance/performance)


Exhibtied in Mil24 exhibtion, Islington Mill, Salford

"Mutt-TV presents Wrestlemania 1" 2010

(video performance)




MUTT-tv, Alexander Wilson/Robin Reeder collaboration more here unicone.co.uk here daliforniacreaming.blogspot.com and here mutt-tv.blogspot.com/



"A conversation of practiced indifference" 2009


(sculpture)


"A conversation of practiced indifference"

"A conversation is started between a glass and a vase.

    Glass: Disassociates itself from the vase.

    Vase: Disassociates itself from the glass.

    Jar: Realised the conversation is contradictory and of nothingness.

The Jar becomes the existential third party."

'Talking to God on the Big White Telephone' 2009(audio)

(Location - male/female toilets of JWT london offices)

The bathroom environment is a very private one. Cubicles afford privacy and simultaneously provide the artist with a captive audience. I intend to take advantage of this unique, yet ubiquitous, space. I want to create an atmosphere of suggestion using recorded speech played through the speaker’s within the toilet cubicles.
A sequence of spoken words or, perhaps, a list will be deployed in an audio loop that has duration of approximately ten minutes. The list is derived from “I can make you Rich”, an audio book by Paul McKenna (the hypnotist). However the words selected from this are in a random order therefore has no narrative content, and no direct connection between the words stated other than that which owns personal correspondence in the individuals mind. It is simply a sequence of non sequitur. Very faint in the background is the actual audio book in reverse, or ‘backmasked’. The intention is for the audio to work on a subliminal level parodying the advertising industry's deployment of subliminal techniques, the subliminal controversy historically based around audio ‘backmasking’ and the post-structuralist word play often to be found in conceptual and neo-conceptual art.
Inspired by the power of the advertising industry, ‘hypnotism’ and by artists Momas, Robert Barry, Alvin Lucier, Mike Kelly, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Martin Creed and Rod Summers.
The piece was in an exhibition at the London head office of advertising company 'JWT' that ran from July-September 09, the company subsequently bought the piece of work for part of their art collection.




'MORSE MOYLES'  2009(audio sculpture)


-- --- .-. ... . -..-. -- --- -.-- .-.. . ...
My work recently, through the exploration of sound art, has been orientated around language initially due to a subconscious concern of how to ‘communicate’ sound as art. This, alongside my fascination of subcultures, has lead me towards the tendency to explore analogue/obsolete electronics. Other interests were drawn from my Grandad’s extensive memorised knowledge of Morse Code from his time in the RAF in WWII. Something, which he was required to learn over 6 months and is now pretty much an obsolete communication format. It still survives as a recreational communication device used in amateur radio communities, minimally in the air-force, and of course in the title sequence of the drama “Inspector Morse”, revealing the perpetrator of the crime in the ensuing episode.







This idea of radio communication and its spatial qualities I find fascinating and therefore am basing this work upon it. I am also using the opportunity whilst working with Resonance FM, to construct a piece of work for a Radio show lasting 1hour. The time restriction acts as space within the radio bandwidth within which to exhibit.
The Chris Moyle’s breakfast show is one of the most popular Radio shows in the country, following the ‘Morning Zoo’ radio concept using background noise of the ‘energetic’ surroundings and idle often incoherent ‘banter’. May 2009 saw the listening figures rise to 7.7million, meaning a lot of power over listeners, but lacking in actual content.
I aimed to mock Moyle’s with the use of Morse Code by reducing its listening demographic to those familiar with the code and in turn belittling the lack of content, and the shows’ ideals. The piece is a social comment on Britain’s ‘easy’ and ‘palatable’ mainstream culture/media and its arguable ‘misuse’ of communication technological privileges
The piece (as well as being exhibited within the space of the radio on ResonanceFM Friday June 5th at 8pm) takes a sculptural form. I have installed the piece on an MP3 player, then rewired the input of a stereotypical AM/FM radio to bypass the radio transmissions and output the MP3 instead. Essentially I am utilising the radio as an amplifier. However the MP3 player is not visible so appears to be just Radio output, illustrating literally the idea of radio as a conceptual space within a space, within a gallery context.


/ɪf ju: kǝd ri:d saʊnd weɪvz ju: wʊd ʊndǝstænd/ 2009(audio sculpture)


If you could read sound waves you would understand.


Sound Sculpture: Oscilloscope, MP3 player, Phonemic Text.The piece is silent. Whilst the MP3 player plays a received pronunciation voice saying "If you could read sound waves you would understand", the sound waves of the voice appear on the oscilloscope screen. Bellow is placed the text /ɪf ju: kǝd ri:d saʊnd weɪvz ju: wʊdʊndǝstænd/ (the phonemic translation/how when its spoken it sounds).The work is about the use of language and alternative communication, the possibility of communicating through visual sound waves.














all work copyright - Alexander Wilson