‘4 HOUR TEST’

Installation
2018

(Click individual images to enlarge)

‘4 HOUR TEST’ was a fleeting installation which took place inside a live music event programmed at the Royal Academy of Arts. The intervention took the form of a transparent documentation and archiving process, which unfolded live across on a central screen visible to the audience.

An anonymous documentation team weaves amongst the crowd, recording fragments of the activity going on within; portraits, conversation, video. This live generated material is cross referenced with the RA’s historic archives and curated into miniature collections. Unfolding in real time, the crowd see themselves in association with revered and normally untouchable artworks. The sweat lines on the back of a guitarist’s shirt are shown alongside Craigie Aitchison’s painting ‘Crucifixion’ (1988), in which the markmaking has a similar quality. The glow from a strobe light beares a striking resemblance to the candle illumination in Thomas Lawrence’s ‘Abelard in his Study’ (1833)

People seek out the cameras in the hope of being shown on the screen, or strike up conversations with those they’ve seen on it. The atmosphere created by this feedback, as people piece together the situation, can be considered an important part of the work.