All These Worlds Are Yours Except… refers to the end of the movie 2010, the year in which the exhibition happened and in the movie the year man made ‘contact’ with alien life.
The solo exhibition was at g39 and featured the launch of the Sound Car.
An anthology show, the main theme was how we use and occupy space and questioning what is our relationship with the nature world.
The exhibition was a collection of work on this theme and was the seed of the interest in the urban hunter/gather which features in later works.
The sound car was launched with a sound piece which involved editing the voice of Hal 9000 from 2001 so it appeared as a conversation between Hal and another version of Hal which was Hal’s therapist. This related to the early experiments in Ai where the software simply re-phrased and repeated back the responses it received and the human typing thought the machine was listening and being empathetic.
A film using the sound car featured the band Bear Man who were driven around Cardiff performing live within the vehicle to roundabouts. The roundabout selected from the map echoed the placing of the stars on ‘The Great Bear” constellation and I was interested in the idea of the music of the spheres. The music is a drone, while also was a man made version of the weather phenomena referred to as Garbriel’s Trumpets LINK
The exhibition also feature a series of twisted road paintings relating to the absurdity of roads and urban networks.
I recreated Marcel Broodthaers piece Interview with a Cat about art but this time the subject was a conversation with a cat about hunting. A audio being an act of folly where as humans we add intent to the feline voice in the say why Hal is interviewed by Hal.
The theme of the circle or cyclic and repeated actions was also in the text by Leona Jones. Leona is someone I have collaborated with on numerous text based projects and ‘Brother Jack’ was about singing in the round and how layer are added and created history and evidence.
A print of Mars was placed against a wall. A low resolution image of two blurred pixels, I took it with a low quality camera when the planet was closest to the earth than it had been for 95 Million years. Further details below
Gig in the Pit
On the opening night Bear Man performed a improvised set in ‘The Pit” a former garage inspection pit. A member of the audience was asked to just a sign with was placed between the drummer and the guitarist and chaos pad player. The sign switched Hunter/Gather to Gather/Hunter and the musician musically chased each other, driving the music into a frenzy.
Through the summer while constructing the Sound Car a publicity photo of Apollo Astronauts was left in the rear window to bleach and fade in the sun, becoming a metaphor for themes in the exhibition.
The initial idea with the Sound Car was as a mobile Town Cryer and the slogan “Don’t Shoot the Messenger” was used for the side of the car. The piece heralded impending doom as we become aliens to nature on our own planet.
GALLERY TEXT HERE by Mike Cousin
RICHARD HIGLETT 