Things Keep Their Secrets
(2017)- Abstract
Following Emily Wardill's exhibition "Matt Black and Rat" at Bergen Kunsthall, January 20th to March 26th 2017, the publication Things Keep Their Secrets, is an extensive and multi-faceted work which includes both images and stills from the artist's latest works, the unique fumages, manually inserted into each of the 750 copies – as well as two newly commissioned texts by philosopher Michael Marder and critic Kirsty Bell. A conversation between curator Martin Clark and the artist also runs through the book and binds it all together within a characteristic style, reflecting Wardill's own presence in the design process.
As an introduction to the complexities of the book, it starts with a facsimile of the academic paper "The French... (More)
Following Emily Wardill's exhibition "Matt Black and Rat" at Bergen Kunsthall, January 20th to March 26th 2017, the publication Things Keep Their Secrets, is an extensive and multi-faceted work which includes both images and stills from the artist's latest works, the unique fumages, manually inserted into each of the 750 copies – as well as two newly commissioned texts by philosopher Michael Marder and critic Kirsty Bell. A conversation between curator Martin Clark and the artist also runs through the book and binds it all together within a characteristic style, reflecting Wardill's own presence in the design process.
As an introduction to the complexities of the book, it starts with a facsimile of the academic paper "The French Dynamics of Risk Amplification and Attenuation in Context: A French Case Study", written by the French anthropologists Marc Poumadère and Claire May in 2003. The study is a key reference for Emily Wardill's film No Trace of Accelerator (2017), and describes a series of apparently spontaneous fires within the isolated French village of Moirans-en-Montagne in 1995-96. These mysterious fires resulted in both individual and social structural reactions in the small community, and these events form the focus of both the study and the artwork. However, where scientists Poumadére and May investigate the villagers' patterns of action based on an anthropological method, and describe how the fire generated a phase of fear, panic and superstition, spread through the small community, Wardill employs the structure and psychology of horror to explore the physical, psychological and narrative implications of trying to "model" entities, energies or objects that are in constant flux. Filmed on a series of constructed, stylised sets with a cast of archetypal characters loosely based on the real protagonists, Wardill introduces the idea of fire as a chaotic and unpredictable object—a metaphor for various conditions of fear, instability, uncertainty, and horror.
(Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/990003ae-46ec-44f5-ae32-79b11982f215
- author
- Wardill, Emily LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2017
- type
- Book/Report
- publication status
- published
- pages
- 179 pages
- publisher
- Motto Books, Bergen Kunsthall
- ISBN
- 9788293101352
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 990003ae-46ec-44f5-ae32-79b11982f215
- date added to LUP
- 2019-05-24 13:29:15
- date last changed
- 2019-05-27 11:49:28
@book{990003ae-46ec-44f5-ae32-79b11982f215,
abstract = {{<br/>Following Emily Wardill's exhibition "Matt Black and Rat" at Bergen Kunsthall, January 20th to March 26th 2017, the publication Things Keep Their Secrets, is an extensive and multi-faceted work which includes both images and stills from the artist's latest works, the unique fumages, manually inserted into each of the 750 copies – as well as two newly commissioned texts by philosopher Michael Marder and critic Kirsty Bell. A conversation between curator Martin Clark and the artist also runs through the book and binds it all together within a characteristic style, reflecting Wardill's own presence in the design process.<br/>As an introduction to the complexities of the book, it starts with a facsimile of the academic paper "The French Dynamics of Risk Amplification and Attenuation in Context: A French Case Study", written by the French anthropologists Marc Poumadère and Claire May in 2003. The study is a key reference for Emily Wardill's film No Trace of Accelerator (2017), and describes a series of apparently spontaneous fires within the isolated French village of Moirans-en-Montagne in 1995-96. These mysterious fires resulted in both individual and social structural reactions in the small community, and these events form the focus of both the study and the artwork. However, where scientists Poumadére and May investigate the villagers' patterns of action based on an anthropological method, and describe how the fire generated a phase of fear, panic and superstition, spread through the small community, Wardill employs the structure and psychology of horror to explore the physical, psychological and narrative implications of trying to "model" entities, energies or objects that are in constant flux. Filmed on a series of constructed, stylised sets with a cast of archetypal characters loosely based on the real protagonists, Wardill introduces the idea of fire as a chaotic and unpredictable object—a metaphor for various conditions of fear, instability, uncertainty, and horror.<br/>}},
author = {{Wardill, Emily}},
isbn = {{9788293101352}},
language = {{eng}},
publisher = {{Motto Books, Bergen Kunsthall}},
title = {{Things Keep Their Secrets}},
year = {{2017}},
}