In The Heat of The Moment"Energy is an eternal delight, and he who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence." This is a collaborative project devised and created by artists Tom Barnett and Peter Dibdin with sound intervention by Simon Mathewson. It is a project that was conceived as being condusive to exploring the nature of collaborative practice between two artistic generators. Barnett and Dibdin have spent six months researching and developing ideas from which this exhibition has materialized. Although living approximately five hundred miles apart, the use of Internet telephony has provided a common space where the artists could work, exchanging ideas, images, and text. As process is a central element of each artists practice, so the development of this project is as much the artwork as the final exhibition seen at Bridport Arts Centre. People from Bridport community have been invited to participate along the way by sitting for portrait photographs, and also to witness a ritualised spectacle, the firing of the substation sculpture-kiln. One hundred portrait photographs were taken on a rainy market day in May. These were then printed onto clay tiles with iron oxide. Over a week at the end of May a sculpture-kiln in the form of an electricity substation was built and the photographic tiles were placed inside it to be fired. Two fuels - gas and wood - were used to power the substation kiln for the firing event. The gas was used to build the temperature up at an even pace. The wood heat caused turbulence and fluctuations of temperature within the internal space thus creating a wide variety of effects in the surfaces of the tiles. Mathewson devised the soundscape for the firing. He also recorded elements of the firing process which are incorporated into this soundscape to add further dimensions to the artwork. The installation is the culmination of the whole process, from taking the photographs to firing the kiln. It has been configured to ask subtle questions concerning the rugged territory of energy issues in today's society. It is not intended to reveal absolute truths but instead provoke reflection about our situation in this moment. |