john lawrence - The solar pessimist
The Kim Fielding Award 2017
The Km Fielding Award was set up following the untimely death of the dynamic Welsh artist and curator Kim Fielding, to continue his legacy in the promotion of experimental contemporary arts practice and the nurturing of creative communities. John Lawrence was selected as the winner of the second award and we were delighted when they approached us with the hope of staging Lawrence’s ambitious large scale sound and light installation in the skate park.
Lawrence collaborated with actor Peter Hugo Daly (Gangs of New York, Cassandra’s Dream) and Berlin- based musician Tim Eve (W/ndows, Night Angles) to produce the work. It launched with an event, and then played at 10pm every night for a week, taking over the whole space immersing the audience in a performed spoken-word monologue with a cyclical, rhythmic soundscape produced specifically for the unique site of the skate park.
…so the sun’s a conscious being…pretentious orb…and he gave fish legs and they walked out of the ocean…give or take…..and we are the by-product of this God’s slow death…and we are looking the other way! Staring into space…and this…‘conscious being’…for millions of years…has been screaming at us because we don’t seem to understand, that he is…on fire!…
…WELL HERE’S THE RUB… YOU’RE LOOKING AT HIM. HE IS I… SO TO SPEAK… AND SEEN AS YOU ASK…YES, THE OLD BELIEVERS WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG… I AM THE CENTRE OF THINGS AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN. PICTURE ANY IMAGE… ON ANY SURFACE, IN ANY CONTEXT OVER TIME, WHERE I… THE SUN… AM DEPICTED WITH A FACE. ARE YOU PICTURING IT? NOW CONSIDER IT… ‘CORRECT’
Shifting between speculative ‘pub chat’ and philosophical diatribe, although drawn towards more ‘lofty’ areas of thought he becomes… distracted, his thoughts distorted through the joint lenses of conspiracy theory, new-agism and that of the self-righteous contemporary consumer.
Within the sprawling, meandering thought-process are propositions about what the best thing is to be doing at the end of the world, how zero-gravity pornography will affect us all and… if the sun is a conscious being… what happens when he starts talking back?
You can watch a video interpretation of the installation by the artist here