'Search' in IDIOT BOX

A TV wall curated by Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard.

George Barber, Matt Calderwood, Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard, Lasse Gjertsen, Jeff Keen, Rob Kennedy/Martin Parker/Sue Tompkins, Wendy Kirkup & Pat Naldi, David Shrigley, John Smith

Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard made their first feature film, 20,000 Days on Earth, a fictitious documentary about the musician Nick Cave. In the ensuing interviews, they repeatedly returned to talking about their early cinematographic influences. For their fourth exhibition at Kate MacGarry, they curated a TV wall of short films, which have inspired their practice since they started working together at Goldsmiths in 1992. The exhibition includes their very first film and self-portrait, Chain Smoker Tap Dancer. As a new double-act at art college, they wanted to bring something of their lives before they met in front of the camera. ‘At the time it was a deliberately stupid idea, an idiotic gesture’ say Forsyth and Pollard, ‘but seeing it again now, we’re surprised by how much it looks like ‘art’.’

The films included in the exhibition range from stop animations to static single takes, performances to found footage. Some reference the noise and nature of television, others simply invite enquiry. All of them however, resonate in today’s contemporary YouTube-obsessed culture. They are short, pithy and hard-hitting and are reminders to Forsyth and Pollard of why they first picked up a video camera. ‘We want to pause for a moment’, they say, ‘and build a big, black monument to the Idiot Box in the corner.’

'Search' was a project made for Television. It consisted of twenty ten second sequences transmitted during the commercial breaks. It was broadcast on Tyne Tees Television between June 21st and July 4th as part of the Tyne International Festival 1993.

On Monday May 17th 1993 at 1pm in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne Pat Naldi and Wendy Kirkup took a synchronised walk in two separate locations in the city centre. This event was recorded on the 16-camera surveillance system recently installed throughout the commercial centre of the city by Northumbria Police and the City Council in partnership with local businesses.

The systems' radial vision recorded 16 separate views of the city in any one second, 24 hours a day.

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