About
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, presents an exhibition of new and recent work by Heather Phillipson (born London, 1978). Yes, surprising is existence in the post-vegetal cosmorama consists of three videos within custom-made environments in BALTIC's Ground Floor Gallery. Cardiovascular Vernacular (as in âit's time for my regular cardiovascular vernacular') 2013, will also be launched. A new audio-visual walking tour that takes visitors outside the gallery space, the work will link BALTIC with its sister venue, BALTIC 39, in Newcastle upon Tyne.
The exhibition invites visitors into a multi-layered interior of hidden and revealed structures, containing moving images, sounds and machines which are re-coloured, re-sized and inhabited. Portals and enclosures provoke a succession of arrivals and departures and throughout, the voice is a pervasive and contagious presence.
On entry the visitor encounters immediately and for a short time balloons weapons too-tight clothing worries of all kinds 2013, introducing a world that is occasionally familiar. The video detours through incidental music, gestures, undertones, overtones and deliberate decorative elements while the narration glues together the painted, collaged and digitally enhanced backdrops. The second video, ha!ah! 2013, takes a plunge into oral hygiene rituals from within a boat on a wave of water bottles. Last, A Is to D What E Is to H 2011-13, undertakes an odyssey between language and architecture. Constructed around two interchangeable words and two interchangeable locations, the mouth becomes the central byway, a cavity for language and sensual experience.
In counterpoint, Cardiovascular Vernacular (as in âit's time for my regular cardiovascular vernacular'), a 12-step walking tour, journeys beyond the gallery. The city and its systems become prompts for physical and virtual digressions. Delivered through a smartphone, the tour is an exercise class with no visible instructor. Its 'personal trainer' has the appearance of omniscience and authority, but is subject to blunders, doubts and technical glitches. The walking tour is presented as part of Festival of the North East, taking place throughout the region in June 2013.
