Kennedy Browne: The Redaction Trilogy

About

The exhibition serves as a critical milestone in the career of these artists as their practice together enters its fifteenth year.

The Redaction Trilogy is an intriguing and thought provoking exhibition addressing topical issues in relation to technology and social media. The exhibition consists of three installations. How Capital Moves (2010); The Myth of the Many in the One including The Wonder Years (2013) and Real World Harm (2018).

The exhibition traces a revised history based on societal changes brought about through technological advances over the last two decades. Developing scripts from sources such as online forums and business biographies, the trilogy of works explore the impact of digital technology on labour and politics. Each work questions the mythical hero status given to tech pioneers alongside the impact of technology on social behaviour, privacy and civil rights of the twenty-first century citizen.

The Redaction Trilogy challenges us to criticise the use of pervasive technology by opening a debate on its future in our everyday lives. The astonishing rate of change brought about by developments in digital technologies is present us with a vast range of power and influence in global communication. Now that we have these tools we can question what exactly do they do?

The title of the exhibition derives from Kennedy Browne’s distinctive editing process of gathering and devising texts. As artists they often work as redactors (editors) who interlace writings from many sources into a single text, sometimes adding brief elements of their own, or pointing to similarities and inconsistencies between different accounts. Each of the works in this exhibition incorporates a script for a performance by a single actor (or avatar) staged in a particular place or situation, and is accompanied by a Disclaimer informing viewers of terms of engagement.

Gareth Kennedy and Sarah Browne established the practice Kennedy Browne in 2005 seeking to address the narratives of neoliberal capitalism as a fiction. They work mainly with moving image within a collaborative processes of scripting, editing and re-staging in locations identified as significant within the scenario of global capitalism. Kennedy Browne represented Ireland at the 53rd Venice Biennale alongside the artists’ own solo practices.