Riffing upon the commodification of youth and the pap-rhetoric of happiness marketing, they take the form of part playground-equipment, part-Pietà-like statuary, that upon closer inspection are being eaten alive by swarms of razor-toothed dolls.
Rachel macclean series#
Resembling hybrids of bored commuters, cutesy kids’ TV monsters and sickeningly engorged, over-consumptive organs, the figures also function as inanimate viewers for a series of infographic videos, displaying spreadsheets, bar graphs and market research surveys to their unblinking users. The new sculptural works in Wot u :-) about? will present an array of larger-than-life figures inhabiting the space, directly relating to and overlapping with the props, costumes and aesthetic within the films. Maclean commented: “I’m interested in experimenting with how these films will function within the gallery space as large-scale projections, at times syncing and seeming to communicate with one another, and at other times branching off and seeming to develop their own self-enclosed narrative.” Pushing an exploration of language, the artist uses English neologisms, text speak and market research copy and gobbledegook to establish an only just comprehensible, yet otherworldly communication system. Wot u :-) about? expands upon themes explored in Maclean’s previous works including Over The Rainbow (2013) and Feed Me (2015). Maclean’s highly distinctive visual output uses the fairytale genre to examine the contentious boundary between child and adult, touching upon ideas of commodified happiness and the politics of fear, rendering dark and unsettling narratives in the supersaturated, candy-coloured aesthetic of children’s television. Starring as children, adults and invented creatures, Maclean’s characters include a little girl, fairy-tale witch and grotesquely smiling bambi-eyed mascot, merging flesh and blood bodies with 2D cartoon figures, creating unsettling surface gloss avatars who adopt a schizophrenic range of voices and emotions.
Wot u :-) about? plays out across film, sculpture and print in the Scottish artist’s largest solo exhibition to date. It is an exciting new space at one of Europe’s most advanced digital arts schools, dedicated to working with artists at the forefront of creative technology.Announcing the major new exhibition of all new work by Rachel Maclean at HOME Manchester, curated by Bren O’Callaghan and Sarah Perks. Modal encompasses an open plan gallery, cinema space, VR/XR studio, a large screen digital hall, and a striking, multi-story LED façade on the outside of the building. Initially benign and apologetic, they tell convoluted stories and attempt to elicit money, with their protestations soon becoming more sinister. The user is approached by several privileged city dwellers whose heads are large smartphones. Rachel Maclean’s ‘I’m Terribly Sorry’, a virtual reality experience, is set in a dystopian British urban landscape filled with oversized Union Jack-emblazoned tourist merchandise. Their technology infused contemporary art practices exist at the intersection between real life and simulated worlds. With 2D and 3D computer graphics created with technologies such as Unity and Unreal engine software, their artistic investigations are pushing the boundaries of contemporary art, changing the rules of the game and creating a new playground for art. Evans, Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Jenna Sutela, Joshua Citarella, Juan Cortés, Lu Yang, Rachel Maclean, and DIS.
The exhibition features work by nine prominent international artists: Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Auriea Harvey, Cécile B.
Through video installations, audio-visual works, multiplayer experiences and virtual reality, the exhibition explores the ongoing digitization of our societies and how game engine culture has impacted our relationship to images, sounds and interactivity. Resistance and Velocity in Game Engine Culture’, curated by Valentino Catricalà. The School of Digital Arts (SODA)’s new exhibition space Modal opened its doors with an inaugural exhibition in June, entitled ‘ SlipStreamSlip.
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