Artist’s digital exhibition appears at Salford’s International 3
Freud's House - The Double Mirror
Sun, 20 Sep 2015 06:00:00 BST
Sigmund Freud’s theme of the ‘uncanny’ is the focal point for the work of three artists, including Huddersfield’s Anneké Pettican, who exhibit as the collective Brass Art
A DIGITAL exhibition Shadow Worlds: Writers’ Rooms: Freud’s House featuring work from the University’s Anneké Pettican (pictured), explores Sigmund Freud’s theme of the ‘uncanny’ and is the second part of a trilogy, which is now on display at the International 3 gallery in Salford.
The solo exhibition by the collective Brass Art will be on display at the gallery until the end of October and forms the second chapter of an ongoing project which allows them to enter the homes that selected authors have occupied, in this case famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Their most recent project saw Brass Art investigating the Freud Museum in London and their work is also on display in the Museum as part of the Festival of the Unconscious.
The group – which also consists of artists Chara Lewis and Kristin Mojsiewicz – has pioneered the use of Kinect motion sensing scanners to capture and then manipulate improvised performances by the three artists in locations with powerful literary associations. The results are then turned into haunting film sequences that are installed in exhibitions.
Having previously explored the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth and home of the famous Brontë sisters, it is hoped that one of the homes of experimental writer Virginia Woolf will be the location for the concluding project.
Freudian
Anneké Pettican said that Freud was an ideal subject for the second chapter in the Shadow Worlds: Writers’ Rooms trilogy.
“A lot of our work has been inspired by notions of the uncanny and we are well versed in Freud’s writings. It seemed an obvious step to go back to the person who started the whole field of dream analysis.”
The Brass Art trio were given full access to Freud’s house and were also allowed to use his furniture and some of his belongings – including his famous statue of Eros. The performance was captured by Kinect scanners incorporating special software written by University of Huddersfield lecturer Spencer Roberts. Also, the composer Monty Adkins, who is Professor of Experimental Electronic Music at the University, recorded sound generated by the performance and ambient sound in the house. These have been used to create an intriguing binaural soundtrack to the resulting films.
The International 3 gallery has commissioned an essay by Joanne Morra, Reader in Art History and Theory at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, to accompany the exhibition. Her book, Inside the Freud Museums: History, Memory and Site-Responsive Art, is forthcoming with I.B. Tauris.
