In 2011 Outset supported To Do, an exhibition of new work by London based artist Emma Hart.
In a new piece for Matt’s Gallery Emma Hart called on the potential for a camera to precipitate an event, and not simply record it. Developing previous live works into a sculptural video installation that performs itself, Hart requested the audience to do likewise: to step up, instead of hanging back in contemplation.
Fed up of producing her own works herself, Hart has made a group of assistants to help with the arduous tasks of fabrication and documentation. In a devised play of sorts, with stage directions and chorus but maybe no dialogue, the digital protagonists interact within the scenography of the everyday to a script of activating chatter. Language gets things done, as it does in the real world, but here the net output is a command of commanding, the critical exercising of power for power’s sake.
This was Emma Hart’s first exhibition at Matt’s Gallery. The exhibition was accompanied by a publication co-published with The Centre for Useless Splendour at University Kingston London with text by Sally O’Reilly.
ON VIEW: 28th September – 20th November 2011
