Casebooks
Various Artists
Ambika p3
17 MARCH - 23 APRIL 2017
Free
Curated by the University of Cambridge, Casebooks explores one of the largest surviving sets of medical records in history. Artists included are Jasmina Cibic, Federico Díaz, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Rémy Markowitsch, Lindsay Seers and Tunga who all bring a unique and progressive artistic response to the work, helping it to come alive before your very eyes.
Mediums included are sculpture, video, robotics, live performance and artificial intelligence. Upon entering you are greeted with a massive pool of water, with some empty plant pots and a tree within it - along the side of this installation is a mural with the words "What has been damaged and destroyed is now replaced and becomes a projection in the big light augmented space". Hmm.... make of that what you will.
There is a leather cow, covered in the same material the casebooks themselves would have been. His mouth moves as he speaks, telling of worries and fears the nation had at those times - worries such as planetary movement and the cosmos. Behind this is a giant steel and glass sculpture which I thought somehow resembles the solar system, but who knows if this was actually the point.
One part of the exhibition which I did enjoy was Lindsay Seers's three screen film projected onto 3 disc's: the imagery was fantastic. The video tells a story of Simon Forman's writings, exploring depression, loneliness and selfishness and the way the three screens all worked together to convey a message was both powerful and beautiful.
I was super excited about the exhibition when reading about it as I am very interested in all that Horoscope bullshit people slate me for believing in. However, when I got to the exhibition, I must admit I was disappointed. I had absolutely no idea what was going on and no matter how much I read up on the works I still couldn't quite grasp the concept of them all coming together as responses to these old medical files. I felt that the whole thing was disjointed, unclear and well... just a bit crap really.
I didn't get it. Maybe you will.
OVERALL RATING: **
http://www.p3exhibitions.com/
