Caution Matter
2012
Multi-screen installation
“Making my work in small, often Dickensian, engineering factories in the early 1970’s, I became interested in the neglected creative potential of these niches of industry. In Ealing and nearby Acton, I first saw the sinuous forms of cooling towers emerging from the dull brick rows of houses. They appeared to float above the high street like alien presences, unrelated to the people living there.”
“I began to seriously consider that perhaps the feminine archetype, whose repression began with the mythic descent of Inanna to the Underworld, now inhabited the labyrinthine worlds of our society’s military industrial complex. If she was to be found there, it was exactly the area that I most wanted to explore.”
“Many, if not all, the developments in science and technology are due in great measure to liberal funding from the military. Industry, however, and, in particular, the energy industries, transforms resources and generates the profusion of product that fuels our society. These areas of research and production are usually closed to the public eye. In a way, they are our underworld.” Lijn
Caution Matter is a collaborative project between Liliane Lijn and Jamie Allen and an outcome of Lijn’s residency at Culture Lab in Newcastle (2010-2012).
Caution Matter is an immersive moving image presentation created from both artists’ visits to diverse factories both in London and in the vicinity of Newcastle and is composed of variable single and multi-screen film installations that change depending on the location at which they are exhibited.
Caution Matter
15 minute digital film was screened at Culture Lab in Newcastle on 8th December 2011. A 10 screen installation was shown at the Anglia Ruskin Gallery in Cambridge as part of the Visualise festival, curated by Bronac Ferran, from 17th to 26th January 2012.
Thanks to Richard Wilding, Jamie Rowan, Elmelin Ltd., Chirton Engineering, W.D.Close & Sons Ltd.
