John Gerrard – Catherine Mason

Kelly Richardson, still from Mariner 9, 2012. Copyright the artist, reproduced with permission.

Kelly Richardson’s new work premiering at Whitley Bay (from 3 August), asks questions about our future in space exploration. Featured here is a still from Mariner 9, a 12 meter-long panoramic digital video installation of an imagined Mars centuries into the future, littered with the detritus of long-forgotten expeditions, evidence of mankind’s once optimistic future reduced to scrap. This detail shows the NASA space rover Curiosity due to land on Mars in early August, in an (imagined) semi-defunct state. This art work has been acquired by the Laing Art Gallery, another fine example of important national insitutions engaging with and actively collecting art with a strong digital element (see also the John Gerrard recently acquired by mima).

Kelly is our BCS selected artist this month. See the full image and read more here:http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/46091

John Gerrard, Cuban School (Community of 5th October), 2010. Realtime 3D software, custom made monitor (69x115x30cm) or projection, dimensions variable. Copyright the artist. Courtesy Thomas Dane Gallery, London and Simon Preston Gallery, New York. Reproduced with permission. Collection of mima, purchased with assistance of the Art Fund supported by the Sfumato Foundation.

In our world where the digital is almost by definition associated with high speed, quick manoeuvrability and near instantaneousness, it is an inspiration to learn of John Gerrard’s deliberately slower paced work – the subject of this month’s column for the British Computer Society and premiering in March at AV Festival 12 in conjunction with Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. Read it here: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/43887

Life on Mars?

In Pursuit of the Slow