Shadow Worlds | Writers' Rooms: Freud's House

About

Measuring the space through their bodily presence and a virtual ‘peeling back’ of the architectural layers, Brass Art create a dynamic exploration of the domestic interior as a site of creativity.

We are pleased to announce that Shadow Worlds | Writers’ Rooms : Freud’s House, a solo exhibition by Brass Art will take place at The International 3 this Autumn. 

Brass Art’s new work forms the second chapter of an ongoing project which allows them to enter the domestic spaces that selected authors occupied. Having previously explored the Brontë Parsonage, their most recent project sees Brass Art investigating the Freud Museum, London. The work has been commissioned by University of Salford’s Commission to Collect Programme and has been acquired by University of Salford for their collection.

During a period of residency, Brass Art inscribed themselves into the domestic space of Sigmund Freud’s former London home. Using Kinect laser-scanning to capture intimate-scaled performances throughout the rooms, staircase and hallway, the artists developed a visual response to the notion of the uncanny using strategies of repetition and simultaneous ‘doublings’. They remained open to the unconscious influences that determined their actions, behaviour and movements. During the sojourn in Freud’s house, ambient audio was captured simultaneously by electroacoustic composer Monty Adkins who recorded fleeting and involuntary aspects of the performances and coaxed sounds out of long-dormant objects. 

The resulting work takes the form of a two-screen ‘double’ digital video installation. This pixelated and seemingly fragmented re-imagining of Freud’s house reveals exactly what is there and what is ‘unseen’; the Kinect footage appears to bisect walls and reveal the obverse of the scene. Measuring the space through their bodily presence and a virtual ‘peeling back’ of the architectural layers, Brass Art create a dynamic exploration of the domestic interior as a site of creativity. Experienced binaurally, the soundscape evokes the intimacy of being in the space itself. This temporal interplay and its creative potential lie at the heart of Brass Art’s exploration of Freud’s House.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a commissioned text written by Dr. Joanne Morra. Dr. Joanne Morra is Reader in Art History and Theory in the School of Art at Central Saint
Martins and Founder and Principal Editor of Journal of Visual Culture.

Brass Art is the collaborative practice of Chara Lewis, Kristin Mojsiewicz and Anneké Pettican. Exhibitions include: The Imagining of Things HAG (2013), Flights of Fancy Tatton Park Biennial (2012), Dark Matters The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (2011), Skyscraping Yorkshire Sculpture Park, (2008), The Jerwood Drawing Prize, London (2008). Selected presentations include: Folds in Time: artists’ responses to the temporal and the uncanny, Freud Museum, London (2015), CHArt Conformity, Process and Deviation Kings College Festival of the Humanities, London (2014), Siggraph Los Angeles (2012); Technologies of Drawing European Sculpture Network (2011), ISEA2010:RUHR Dortmund, Germany (2010). Brass Art has received numerous awards including: Arts Council England, British Council, Association of Art Historians, Friends of Yorkshire Sculpture Park and AHRC. Their work is held in a number of public and private collections.

Commissioned by University of Salford Commission to Collect Programme. Suported by University of Huddersfield, Manchester Metropolitan University and University of Edinburgh.Thanks to the Freud Museum, London.

Supported by Arts Council England.

The International 3 would also like to thank our Patrons for their generous support.

For more information please contact Paulette Terry Brien ptb@international3.com