Show and Tell

show and tell central saint martins degree shows one and two 2017 contents 4 Introduction from Jeremy Till, Head of College 6 CSM Come 8 designing no identity SHOW ONE SHOW TWO 12 alternate realities 54 beyond borders 16 Juliana Dorso TAKE FIVE 58 Adam Paroussos TAKE FIVE 18 Michelle Yasuda INTERVIEW 60 Kaye Toland INTERVIEW 20 Realf Heygate TAKE FIVE 62 Berto Valló TAKE FIVE 22 the rest is history 64 virtual reality check 26 Ebony Francis INTERVIEW 68 Ellen Nyqvist TAKE FIVE 28 Lucie McLaughlin and Eleanor Strong TAKE FIVE 70 puncturing power 30 Levi Naidu-Mitchell and Adam Patterson INTERVIEW 74 Mimi Forrest TAKE FIVE 32 Tom Coates TAKE FIVE 76 Alice Duranti INTERVIEW 34 ready to assemble 78 Christine Lew TAKE FIVE 38 Dejan Mrdja INTERVIEW 80 mind matters 40 Simona Sharafudinov TAKE FIVE 84 Lena Peters TAKE FIVE 42 Maria Macc INTERVIEW 86 from trash to treasure 44 Sally Gorham TAKE FIVE 90 Ruby Parker TAKE FIVE 92 Annya Mutia Suhardiv INTERVIEW 94 Sam Gull TAKE FIVE 96 one year on: Sarah Craske 98 MullenLowe NOVA Awards introduction May and June 2017, when our end-of-year It is fantastic to have so much of the work shows went on display, was a febrile time in captured in this review. Over the years we hope the world. It was one year on from the Brexit these collections will provide an essential in- referendum, six months into Trump, the time sight into the changing preoccupations of one of an unwanted election in the UK… and so of the world’s great art and design institutions. on. It would have been strange indeed if the work from Central Saint Martins students did Professor Jeremy Till, not respond to these conditions. Sure enough, Head of Central Saint Martins the shows were the most outward-looking ever. Pro Vice-Chancellor, Our students used anger, humour, criticality, University of the Arts London sheer verve and much more to express them- selves in relation to this social and political landscape. At the same time, they made stuff which was technically adept and full of the virtue of beauty (a word that is sometimes lost in the noise). The other marked trend was the ever-increasing merging and crossing of disciplinary boundaries. Thus the opening of the fine art show, full as it was of performance and impromptu events, took on the character of a carnival rather than a static exhibition. And in the design show, it was sometimes difficult to know which course a project belonged to. This is all to the good, reflecting as it does the hybridisation of action in the professional world beyond. come come, again instagram @csm_news designing no identity Combining restrained visuals with blunt commands, this year’s Degree Show identity has been created by third-year BA Graphic Design students Lorna Searl and Joseph de Weijer. up and coming What drew you to the design competition The identity is sparse but that doesn’t come for the Degree Show identity? necessarily make it easier to execute? LS: We’re both on the Moving Image pathway LS: Exactly. When they saw the design, everyone within our course and it means we don’t was saying “it’ll be super easy for you” but do traditional two-dimensional graphic because it’s so simple, everything has to design often. So, the degree show was a be perfect. good opportunity for us to work in that way – I was really eager but Joe was more reluctant. JdW: As soon as the brief was mentioned I just “you couldn’t Has working on the Degree Show had an thought that it sounded unfair to brand impact on your individual work? come, everyone under one image. encompass JdW: It’s ruined me! Now we’re both Helvetica LS: Then the question was how do you comm- Bold people unicate something by showing nothing? the entire LS: Definitely. I’ve been looking back over my We were stuck for a good while until we work now and think “what’s the point of that again stepped back and asked what’s the point Degree Show line?” or “what’s the point of this colour?” of advertising and branding? Why does it This design fits our personalities. We’re exist? Well, for people to come to the show. in one image, direct, honest. I’m quite serious, whereas I remember when we got the idea – it was Jo is more chatty. a split-second thing. so if you Initially, I was reticent to present it. I’d seen JdW: That’s what’s important with the design, the other groups who had created some there’s seriousness and humour at the beautiful work and all we’d done is type can’t show same time. “come” into Adobe Illustrator – I was feeling slightly guilty. everything You’re graduating this year, do you have then you plans for the future? Essentially, it’s the “no identity, identity” LS: We work well together so we’ll see how it which means you have to be sensitive have to show goes but we want to get straight out there. to every design choice and any kind of Working on the Degree Show hasn’t simply embellishment? nothing.” been a learning experience, it’s got real world JdW: Yes, it’s been a very careful operation impact and that’s been good for both of us. because it’s so easy to cross the line into It’s been a definite confidence boost. something needless. We stick to Helvetica Bold in lower case and with a bit of spacing it starts to define itself visually. come Show One, 24–28 May 2017. From the slightest glimpse to the loudest roar, Show One celebrated the voices and visions that will forge the future of fine art. COURSES FEATURED: BA Fine Art, MA Art and Science, MA Fine Art, MA Photography and MRes Art: Exhibition Studies, Moving Image, and Theory and Philosophy. There’s an installation in Show One that turns the degree show into a Russian doll of sorts. Stepping into MA Photography students Ben Marland and Timo Baier’s collaborative work, visitors experience a Virtual Reality (VR) replica of the room in which they are physically standing, complete with versions of their fellow students’ work. However, this virtual space is like no other as the building soon starts to erode around the user until they are left in a post-apocalypse where humans are gone and the only remnants are the works of art. “What remains of a culture through time is its art. It tells the story of societies past,” says Marland. The idea was inspired by the artistic tradition of the ruin, specifically a painting of Sir John Soane’s Bank of England as a ruin painted on the eve of the building’s completion. But with the introduction of VR technology, the dilapidation happens around the viewer, in front of their very eyes. There is, of course, an in-built sense of humour here too, as Baier describes: “I think it’s funny that we talk about art outliving ourselves and make that the topic of our work but once you unplug ours it’s not even perceivable anymore.” come alternate Exploiting VR’s characteristics has been central to the collaboration. “We’re given the power of god, we can show one show one make things happen that wouldn’t be possible in the real world,” says Marland, “VR has made its big debut in the arts scene but people are interested in the tech- realities nology itself and not what it can give us. Painting gave us these representative abilities already, so the important question is what can VR do that painting can’t?” A particular concern for Baier and Marland was the isolating nature of the medium which often leaves one person wearing a headset transported into their own world with the rest of the audience entirely cut-off. The plan for Future Retrospective is that spectators will be offered glasses, so they can see what the protagonist sees, making the installation a shared social experience. Here VR functions like a memento mori, reminding us of time’s march and our own insignificance, but the work can also be interpreted as a mechanism to escape current realities. Reflecting on the popularity of the ruin in late 18th century art, Baier says “Romanticism appeared at the beginning of the rise of nation states and that period saw a lot of conflicts in Europe and somehow it feels similar now. The idea of nationalism Ben Marland and Timo Baier is here again, almost graspable.” Questions of truth and fiction aren’t reserved for photography. Nathaniel Faulkner, BA Fine Art, presents two monolithic sculptures in Show One: the first a replica of IBM’s Deep Blue computer that beat chess master Garry Kasparov in 1997 and the next a replica wall from a scene in from Star Wars. Deep Blue came from Faulkner’s interest in the stories of cargo cults in Melanesia where native societies interpret Western goods for ritualistic purposes. So stands Deep Blue, a monolithic sculp- ture in black powder-coated steel, part-replica, part-relic and part-totem. The machine aesthetic is immediately undermined by a look around the back, a bundle of Christmas lights sello-taped to the perforated steel is in fact what gives the object its seeming sentience. Reality is a recurring theme in MA Photography At its root, Deep Blue is an impressive exterior with as the medium itself confronts the viewer with an almost-pathetic interior.

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