Emma Hart’s practice is a course of imaginative action for domestic technology, manifesting in videos, sculptures and performances. Hart especially wants to liberate the camera, from what she declares is the burden of having to produce informative documents. Hart is intent on making new images and forms, to which we will ask, not ‘what is it of?’ but ‘what is it doing?’
FOR TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS
A television with appendages will pipe an oral proposition; we must make new. Looks to be sucked in, and words to be spat out. Strike out and tape, over. Wipe away the old tears and make it thick instead. Then fast-forward or rewind (you choose) to predict the notes, lists and instructions that will always be needed. File and Save. We will need to go over it again.
Emma Hart presents a modified television that provides different viewing and access points to saved and unsaved items, including Hart’s 1989 appearance on the quiz show Blockbusters (which she’s never seen) as her father taped over it with the film Moonraker. This is a model for saving and is to be multiplied…
London-based Hart has presented solo exhibitions and performances at galleries including Cell Project Space, The Whitstable Biennale, Camden Arts Centre and Modern Art Oxford. She is currently researching for her PhD at Kingston University. In 2011 Hart presented TO DO, a critically acclaimed solo show at Matt’s Gallery, London, where she is represented.
FLASH BACK (Monument to the Unsaved #1) , 2012. Extract.
Everything Sucked Out, From The Inside, 2012, Video Still
Flash Back Animation, Video Still, 2012
TO DO, Matt’s Gallery, (Installation views), 2011
LOST, 2009-2011, HD Video Installation, 19mins.
By pushing the video camera into awkward places and looking what appears on the camera’s screen, we can see what is lost.
Installation views:
An ongoing collection of video attempts to creep up on an animal, try and capture it looking at me, then run at it with the video camera, 2007 – 2010. Series One.
Using The Light From The Camera Screen To Attract Moths, 2007. Extract.
All works courtesy the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.