Transmission - 13.11.18
Date: 13th November 2018On Tuesday, David and Ru will be presenting a public talk in Sheffield, exploring their recent collaborative work for the 2018 Transmission Lecture series.
About the talk:
In recent years, David Cotterrell and Ruwanthie de Chickera have embarked on an eclectic series of field trips, producing a series of experimental artworks to clarify their experience and understanding of fear, risk, and empathetic failure.
They had been feeling uncomfortable with war being described as a declared state rather than a location on an iterative scale of social disintegration. While accepting that some measure of polarisation is a pre-requisite for conflict, Cotterrell and de Chickera consider the cycle of disengagement that is required to allow barriers to be constructed, long before they are recognised as fortifcations. Their research addresses the staged challenges to empathy that occur before the descent into the polarised engagement of military forces. Where risk has been identifed, and measures are variably employed as responsive protocols, a situation of distancing may occur – most obviously between the observer and the subject, but also between the perceptions of different observers.
To address this threat to collective understanding, they are developing a research network, exploring the contradictory nature of mutually exclusive versions of truth. Their work considers the way in which risk can be a catalyst to the loss of pluralist narratives as communities and individuals are denied access to each other’s vantage points. In particular, Cotterrell and de Chickera have an interest in the artist’s role in foregrounding subjective and alternate perspectives that may serve to challenge existing datasets, methodologies, and illusions of objectivity.
Time and Location:
13 Nov 2018 4:30pm–6pm
Booking:
Free and open to all, Transmission is an annual artist lecture series produced in collaboration with Sheffield Hallam University Fine Art Department.
Eventbrite Link for free registration
About the Series:
Transmission is an annual series of lectures and symposia, now in its fifteenth year, and is a collaboration between Fine Art, the Art & Design Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University, and Site Gallery. Convened by Sharon Kivland in 2001, Transmission was developed collaboratively with Lesley Sanderson from 2001 to 2004, and with Jasper Joseph-Lester from 2004 to 2012. The series is now convened by Sharon Kivland, TC McCormack, and Julie Westerman, Fine Art, in association with Site Gallery, Sheffield.
Works:
Mirror I (v) , Mirror II (v) , Mirror III (v) , Mirror IV (v) , OnSilent (v) , The WallExhibitions:
Empathy and Risk: Three Mirrors and a WallSponsors:
