Mobile Research Station no.1

hi-tech Antarctic Research Station / half rusty-broken-dumpster. Using a standard building-waste container as its basis, the station nevertheless forms a luxurious designer-pod provided for an eccentric set of researchers. Rather than researching the frozen wastes of Antarctica or the moons of Saturn, the invited artist/researchers have begun their investigation into the surrounding wilderness and urban zones of uncertainty that still lie at the centre of Berlin. There initial findings and questions can be found in this blog as and when they happen.

I really liked Simon Faithfull’s recent show at the BFI.
He does something genuinely witty & engaging with the
kind of ‘play-acted science’* that seems to be so in vogue with artists
at the moment.
This project has similar premises but it doesn’t resonate
in the same way.
Of all the work up on the site these two little movies by Tim Knowles
detained me the longest although it’s a shame they weren’t made
with more care (perhaps, though, there’s a deluxe DVD edition
for sale somewhere along the line..)
They do look nice though.

* It sounds entirely dismissive but it’s not meant to be.
Well, not entirely.
If I had to enlarge I’d say it was an attempt to enlist a kind of sympathetic magic
whereby some of the presumed authenticity of science rubs off
on the artists’ work. But of course because we’re all ironists
now we’re all quite aware that there’s a kind of Tati-ish, childlike
going-through-the-motions-of-science actually going on ( ooh those artists!)
& presumably it’s in this disjuncture that the art purportedly emerges.
With Faithfull (and Knowles) the results at least are visually engaging
and to an extent affecting if not particularly deep.
OK. Fine. But just how many times round do we go before it
becomes the most painful of clichés?

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