Cecilia Stenbom
The List
Wednesday 6 August - Sunday 10 August 2014
BALTIC 39 1-39 High Bridge, Newcastle upon-Tyne NE1 1EW FREE ADMISSION Opening hours: Wed-Sun 12.00-18.00 except Thu 12.00-20.00 https://www.balticmill.com/whats-on/baltic-39/baltics-project-space/detail/baltic-39-figure-two
PUBLIC PERFORMANCE Thursday 7 August 12.00 Friday 8 August 12.00 Saturday 9 August 12.00 Sunday 10 August 17.30
Cecilia Stenbom works across disciplines and is best known for her video installation and film works that explore our media saturated, consumer driven reality. Using feature films, advertising, 24 hour news, information films and the internet as source material, Stenbom's recent works examine how we are affected, controlled and driven by the information around us. The artist is particularly interested in what triggers fear in contemporary life and examines how this is used to capture our attention in order to stimulate and manipulate an emotional response.
Previous works include the infomercial How to Choose, 2012, which is set in a overly sanitised town house and features a spotless presenter who informs us that 'with careful planning and strategy, your life should run smoothly, avoiding all major disasters.' While System 2013, shot in a shopping centre location in typical filmic style, portrays the individual anxieties of two sisters and their uneasy interactions with the world.
Consisting of performance, installation and video work, Stenbom's project for FIGURE TWO, The List, as the title suggests, begins with a list. At the beginning of the exhibition week the list will consist of 117 items that the artist wants or needs. During the course of the exhibition, the list will be expanded upon and added to by gallery visitors and the wider public to create an evolving analysis of consumer desires.
Each day there will be a performance in which an actor enters the gallery, stands on a mark in front of a camera, and delivers the list with the aid of a teleprompter. Once the actor is finished, the footage will be captured and projected back into the space, representing the list as an endless audio visual loop that surrounds the scrolling teleprompter and the actor's mark.
To gather more items for the list, a data collector is sent out into the city each day with a brief to approach people on the street and ask them to name two products: one they want and one they need. They will be asked to be as specific as possible with their choices focusing on type, colour, make and brand. The collector will return intermittently to the gallery to hand over
'I am interested in creating a state of never ending consumer desire, where economic growth is the answer to everything, by making a list that can be ticked off but never completed. By placing this in a public gallery, one of the few non-domestic places left free from most commercial messages, I hope to create a poignant moment for reflection on the compulsive nature of spending in the pursuit of the good life through consumerism.'
Actor: Arabella Arnott Data collector: Gina-Maria McCarthy
BALTIC 39 FIGURE TWO: 6 AUGUST 2014 - 7 SEPTEMBER 2014
Sarah Bayliss, Amelia Bywater & Rebecca Wilcox, Rachel Gay, Maria Angelica Madero, Ninna Bohn Pedersen, Nicola Singh / Samuel Blackwood / Hazel Brill / Jude Crilly, Natalie Price Hafslund, Laura O'Neill / Charlie Godet Thomas / Katrin Hanusch / Laura Harrington / Russell Hill / Peter Merrington & Tijana Stevanovic / Cecilia Stenbom
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