Serial Loop (v)
Date: 8th January 2009A short seamlessly looped film portrayal of the inexorable arrival of casualties within conflict.
After two years of negotiations between the Wellcome Trust, Imperial War Museum and Ministry of Defence, Cotterrell was invited to observe the Joint Forces Medical Group at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. He underwent basic training, was taught the rudiments of battlefield first aid and was issued with body armour. In November 2007, he flew in an RAF C17 from Brize Norton to Kandahar, the sole passenger in a plane loaded with half a million rounds of palletised munitions and medical supplies to join Operation Herrick 7.
Focusing on these experiences and their inevitable aftermath, Cotterrell produced a new body of photographic and video work. Serial Loop explores the transport and treatment of casualties during a Major Incident. The sound of a continuously arriving and departing Chinook helicopter accompanies images of a bleak and wasted landscape; the banality of the film’s fixed perspective masks the dramas that unfold within the ambulances as they travel to triage. A fire rages in the distance while antiquated ambulances lumber along to take wounded to treatment areas.
During Cotterrell’s stay in Helmand, two British soldiers died, 29 were wounded in action and 74 were admitted to the field hospital. 71 Aeromed evacuations were recorded and an undisclosed number of civilian, insurgent and Afghan National Army soldiers were treated.
Materials:Single Channel HD Video Loop.
Categories:
Gallery , Installation , Series , Site Neutral , VideoNews:
TheArtFund RUSI: Remembrance in a Modern Society - 10.03.10, Bearing witness: the role of war artists in the 21st century - 26.10.09Bibliography:
War Culture and the Contest of Images, Art in the Danger Zone, War and Medicine, Krieg und Medizin, Bloody RealityExhibitions:
Saving Lives: Frontline Medicine in a Century of Conflict, Aesthetic Distance, Aqua Art MiamiAwards:
War & Medicine : War Artist CommissionTalks:
David Cotterrell on Afghanistan (v), Culture in a Time of Conflict (a), Culture and Consequence, TED : How I Almost Lost My Faith in Photography (v), David Cotterrell Film Screening, Army medics on the front-line (v), BBC Radio 4 Today : Injury and Conflict (a), David Cotterrell in Conversation, David Cotterrell War and MedicineDownloads:
RSA Lecture : Culture in a Time of Conflict, War and Medicine : Artists Diary, Guardian G2 : Bloody Reality, War and Medicine : Interview Transcript, RSA Journal : Art and Conflict, TimeOut : Military ResponsesReviews:
artsandecologyblog : David Cotterrell - Truth in the mundane, artsandecologyblog : Afghanistan - art and war, ameliasmagazine.com : Aesthetic distance, Yorkshire Post : The Silence That Still ResonatesSponsors:
