The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things, installation view (detail) the Bluecoat, Liverpool. 2013. Photo Jon Barraclough.
Francois Dallegret, Ted’s Opera Cosmic Space Suit, 1968, Courtesy the artist (c) the artist.
Space Dog Suit. Image courtesy the National Space Centre.
Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Leckey has curated an exhibition that explores the magical world of new technology, as well as tracing its connections to the beliefs of our distant past.
Historical and contemporary works of art, videos, machines, archaeological artefacts and iconic objects, like the giant inflatable cartoon figure of Felix the Cat – the first image ever transmitted on TV – inhabit an “enchanted landscape” created in Nottingham Contemporary’s galleries, where objects seem to be communicating with each other and with us.
In Leckey’s exhibition “magic is literally in the air.” It reflects on a world where technology can bring inanimate “things” to life. Where websites predict what we want, we can ask our mobile phones for directions and smart fridges suggest recipes, count calories and even switch on the oven. By digitising objects, it can also make them “disappear” from the material world, re-emerging in any place or era.
Text and Images Nottingham Contemporary
WANDERLUST 