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Dislocated Flesh

Julien Ottavi and Jenny Pickett

2 until 22 December 2011

PV: 1 December, 7 - 9pm

This new body of work by Julien Ottavi and Jenny Pickett stems from their long term collaboration exploring perception, memory, and architecture. Considering physical and virtual space they are intrigued how these phenomenons influence the body, particularly in a post-human construction of society. Ottavi and Pickett’s dialogue interrogates the cross-section between sound, space and image. Dislocated Flesh explores the ability of these junctures to affect our interpretation and create a tension in our readings of language, the results of which are poetic and bemusing.

Possession, the main work on the ground-floor, is a suspended human scale cocoon-like sound sculpture, constructed with ivory fabric and crinoline cages. The sound of Possession fluctuates between high frequencies of varying intensity before dropping out altogether. The sonic affect coincides with a burst of light flashing from the objects interior, leaving behind a salivating oral impression. In the basement Radotage which translates as Drivel consists of six scalps, hung from the ceiling, turning slowly upon cymbals. Each endlessly scraping and scratching away at their amplified metallic surfaces, Radotage repeats upon the space through combined and individual visual and audio loops.

Installation view.

Jenny Pickett is a British artist based at APO33: artists’ research lab in Nantes, France. Pickett graduated from Falmouth College of Arts in 2004 with BA(hons) in Fine Art and went on to received an MA in Interactive Media from Goldsmiths in 2007. Jenny Pickett has shown internationally including exhibitions in UK, France, Norway and Italy – where APO33 will exhibit Diffrazione at Live!iXem Festival 2011 in December. Pickett works with a plurality of audio and visual languages from which she creates layers of meaning that explore, amongst narrative subjects, the influences of sound upon the gaze and visa versa. Alongside her practice Pickett’s work at APO33 is to establish cross-border collaborations with other artist-run organisations, both in Europe and internationally. 

Julien Ottavi is a French mediactivist, artist-researcher, composer/musician, poet, experimental film maker, architect, as well as the founder of Apo33. Since 1997, he has developed composition work using voice and its transformation through the computer. His practice is not limited to art spheres but crosses different fields from technological development to philosophy/theoretical research, biomimetic analysis & experimentation. For many years he reflects on the relationship between experimental and collective practices within the creation of autonomous collectives, putting into question the authorship strategy of the art ideology.