Ilinx

Mixed media installation, moving image with original sound, live body

Ilinx takes its title from Roger Caillois' (1961) category of play that induces temporary vertigo. The installation develops a game of vertigo inspired by Muzak, a genre of background music used for the deliberate engineering of listening environments to influence mood and behaviour towards workplace productivity and consumer behaviour. In contemporary technologies entrainment is achieved through an endless stream of images and content, into a kaleidoscopic journey of endless desire.

Inside the installation, the visitor is surrounded by the elements of the game: an arrangement of objects forming a geometric puzzle of weights, measures and translucent materials. Everything moves, breathes and watches, as immersive images and seductive sounds envelop the body.

The moving-image work The Utopia Frequency dominates the space with hypnotic images of oceanic imagery and watery textures, oscillating between an ancient subaquatic world and slick machinic Busby Berkeley symmetries. Drawing on the visual seduction of Hollywood's golden age and the soothing promise of the contemporary mindfulness industry, the work plays with scopic fascination. Its sound frequencies are designed to evoke moments of relaxation as well as fear and dread.

In a small, enclosed space at the far end of the installation, the squelch of slime and flesh surrounds a body trapped in a Sisyphean cycle. Leaning precariously on a prosthetic stick — a third leg, or additional limb — the body repeatedly slips into a mound of jelly that disintegrates and dries as its water evaporates, leaving the body suspended in a futile struggle with time and entropy.

Presented:

Deptford Project Space, Goldsmiths University of London, 2019