Monsters of the Id
Event Name: HAUNTS: Haunted Places and Haunting PracticeVenue/Location: on-line
Date: 29th October 2020 -
Centre for Contemporary Legend (CCL)
Chair/Other Speakers:
Luke Bennett (chair), Andrew Robinson, Diane A. Rodgers, David Clarke
In 2020, the Centre for Contemporary Legend hosted "HAUNTS: Haunted Places and Haunting Practices," an online panel chaired by Luke Bennett. The interdisciplinary session featured eight presentations exploring the intersection of landscape, media, and folklore. A central highlight was artist David Cotterrell’s discussion of his work "Monsters of the Id," which used CGI and immersive technology to create an allegorical response to the trauma and "haunting" reality of modern warfare.
“Monsters of the Id” creates an interactive virtualised view of Afghanistan, going beyond traditional news footage to evoke the psychological tension and paranoia of remote outposts. He explored the ‘Observer Effect’ with an installation featuring a computer-generated population that notices and reacts to the gallery audience, symbolising the unsettling gaze of modern surveillance and the ‘observer’ in war zones. By using CGI and drone imagery, such as in Searchlight II, Cotterrell shows how war technologies create modern legends and ghosts, blurring the lines between physical reality and virtual representation.