Maygay Madness Fruit Machine Fan Club

About

Drawing from the sticky floors and perished interiors of the classic British pub where the fruit machine resides, Maygay Madness Fruit Machine Fan Club presents a dichotomous state of hope and futility, where the individual finds themselves in a landscape of superficial promise underpinned by the total impossibility to ever win. Within this landscape, the fruit machine becomes the ultimate object of inaccessible potential, encouraging each willing individual to participate in the false allure of an unspecified and often obscured win.

Dimelow’s practice suggests an empathy towards the plight of the individual confined by a system where the house always wins. ‘Rice Bowl Down Hill’ and ‘Wrong Door / Caught By Guards’ takes stills from the cult Japanese 80s tv show Takeshi’s Castle, infamous for its ability to deny even the most headstrong contestants a fighting chance at the cash prize. Whilst acknowledging the futility within their fruitless attempts, Dimelow hints at an almost paradoxical humour to be found in each floundering defeat. These commiserations are shifted to a heightened state of reflection in ‘Jackpot’where the pursuit becomes private and accompanied by an amplified degree of self-evaluation; when the fruit machine winnings get spent in the pub, even the victories become indistinguishable; as though one is observed in each and every failure, painfully aware of being set up to lose. Underpinned by a generalized feeling of disillusionment, Dimelow’s work prompts a reconsideration of the act of failure, and the notion of what it means to really try.

Miller’s sculptural practice is perhaps less sympathetic, proposing a contrary and almost cynical approach to the myth of masculine striving in particular. The figure of the archetypal man comes under attack through arrangements of objects which are inherently hollow and empty. The inflatable shark in ‘BUT I KNOW HOW 2 GET OUT’  becomes a vessel which immediately promises and then denies a macho sense of competency, finding itself in a predicament where it is rendered useless and impotent, unable to react or retaliate, instead reduced to a static entity with no escape plan, no means to continue. The London Underground signs which permeate Miller’s practice allude to a situational specificity, yet within the confines of the gallery are also diminished, becoming beacons for false truth, promising so much but totally unable to deliver.

Maygay Madness Fruit Machine Fan Club aims to reassess the idea of striving within a twenty-first century Britain, denying a heroism that is often associated with fighting a noble cause. The classic figure of an aspiring male becomes demoted to a poorly defined and blurry façade of the everyman, unclear of his motives or true desires. In the final analysis, such a pursuit might remain anonymous, yet the emblem of such a figure is still destined to sit atop an ethos that acts as a foundation for a culture where futility becomes normalized and even celebrated. And if all else fails, the pub shall remain open.

Maygay Madness Fruit Machine Fan Club takes its name from the eponymous Facebook group dedicated to the collection and maintenance of the classic machine.