Watermans New Media Success Confounds Arts Council Decision
After straitjacket installation is short-listed for the Prix Ars Electronica 2008
In Autumn 2007 an amazing installation appeared in the Gallery at Watermans.
It looked like a straitjacket suspended from the ceiling lit by a spotlight.
On closer inspection you could see that it had been invisibly wired to transform the movements of anyone who put the jacket on, into a set of images and voices.
These images and voices had been created previously in a workshop with people who personally suffer from social constraints.
They captured the intensity and mood of these feelings of being imprisoned by a society, where people are increasingly under surveillance.
The installation was an original and striking way of explaining and sharing this experience.
Called Straitjacket Embrace! it was a Watermans commission created by the brilliant Dutch team of Karen Lancel and Hermen Maat .
Straitjacket Embrace! has just been short-listed for the Prix Ars Electronica 2008 expo in Austria later this year. http://www.aec.at/en/prix/ This is the most valuable New Media Arts award in the world. Work selected to appear will gain global recognition and status.
Straightjacket Embrace! is typical of the innovation and originality that has been at the heart of Watermans' New Media Arts programme.
New Media Arts is one of the three areas of specialisation for which Watermans' Arts Council grant was given. Over the most recent funding period Watermans New Media Arts has become one of the most outstanding in the whole of the UK. The Gallery has become one of the leading Galleries in London - the only New Media Gallery with a continuous year-round programme of activity.
None of the work that has appeared in Watermans New Media Gallery over the last year has been seen by representatives from the Arts Council. Therefore the quality of the work cannot have been taken into account when making the recent decision to withdraw funding. Given the stated aim to promote 'quality' here is a prime facie case for Watermans' funding to be re-instated.
April 1, 2008
