Proxy, Or - Seventeen

6^th July – 6^th August 2011

David Blandy
Riley Harmon
Graham Hudson

Duels and Dualities: Battle of the Soul is a hacked and customised arcade machine that uses the game Street Fighter II as its starting point. David Blandy has reprogrammed the machine, inserting rendered 2D versions of the personas found in his back catalogue of work, who fight inside customised landscapes associated with his past videos and installations. The figures, including The Child of The Atom and The Barefoot Lone Pilgrim, each have their own series of special moves and powers, save David Blandy, appearing as himself, who only has a hard and a weak punch. The machine itself is decorated with related side art, visualisations of the game in the arcade language, and prior to play, the viewer is treated to the customary animated intro sequence, providing backstory, contexualising the competitive violence.

The work, Discarded Anonymous Portraits, is an archive of drawings with Graham Hudson as the subject matter. In 2009 the Laing Gallery, Newcastle, invited Graham Hudson to respond to Position Suspended (1986) by Mona Hatoum, where she was infamously denied permission to enact a performance while nude in the gallery. This work forced the Laing Gallery to enact policy and procedure, resulting in the use of a body stocking by Hatoum. Hudson made ten proposals to the Laing, all designed to force some sort of collaboration or compromise from the museum. One of the chosen proposals involved Hudson negotiating a nude performance himself inside the Laing – instigating a series of life drawing classes in which he acted as the model. Discarded Anonymous Portraits is the resulting archive of charcoal drawings of Hudson, who collected the drawings left behind by the performers/drawers over several sessions.

Passengers is a series of video works by Riley Harmon, who has edited himself into scenes from Hollywood films, each of which is set in a car interior. Harmon’s substitution is seamless, largely thanks to his own performance and also the skilled technical execution. Both comic and sexually charged, the silence of the exchanges accentuates and heightens each facial expression and nuance, suggesting meaning and understanding between the characters.

David Blandy, Duals and Dualities, 2011
Hacked and customised arcade machine
201 x 114 x 210 cm

Installation View, 2011