Nina Davies Overview

Nina Davies (b. 1991) is a Canadian-British artist who considers the present moment through observing dance in popular culture and how it is disseminated, circulated, made, and consumed. Working primarily with video and performance, Nina Davies considers current dance phenomena in relation to the wider socio-technical environments from which they emerge. Previous research projects have included; the recent commodification of the dancing body on digital platforms and rethinking dances of today as traditional dances of the future. Oscillating between the use of fiction and non-fiction, her work helps build new critical frameworks for engaging with dance practices.

She graduated in 2022 from Goldsmiths MFA Fine Art where she was awarded the Almacantar Studio Award and the Goldsmiths Junior Fellowship position. Her first solo institutional show was Precursing at Matts Gallery, London in 2023. Her work has been exhibited at The Photographers Gallery, Overmorrow House, Battle, Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Hawick and SEAGER Gallery, London.

 

Nina Davies CV

Nina Davies, Never let them know your next move, 2022
Single channel 4k video with sound
10 minutes 56 seconds

Nina Davies’ new film, Never Let Them Know Your Next Move (2022), takes the form of a podcast interview where host and guest discuss recent developments in human/computer relations. This conversation is set in a fictional near future, in a society that while not yet entirely post-work, understanding of what constitutes labour and work is becoming increasingly ambiguous. Davies extrapolates current concerns about the gig economy and surveillance capitalism into a possible future system of work and governance that commodifies human movement and ultimately supersedes human language. In this future workers are monitored and watched, measured and qualified, their movements and interactions compiled into data by digital observers. The film offers multiple readings of this world, proposing contrasting responses of empathy and spiritual engagement or acts of resistance and protest.

Installation view of Nina Davies, Never let them know your next move, 2022 at In Winter, Mute at Seventeen.

Nina Davies, Stepping into machine, 2022
Single channel video with sound
9 minutes 18 seconds

Stepping Into Machine presents a future of society’s changing relationship to technology – changing from being linked to labour, to a coexistence with technical devices. With the advent of ‘cognitive automation services’, an aesthetic and kinetic gap is inaugurated for human dancers. The presented case of the ‘bionic step’ is an illustration of how permeable dance cultures relate to technological developments. These dances, in turn have shaped a new canon for how movement is performed, across digital spaces and bodies / avatars; in front of our phones and stepping into our machine selves. While machines keep progressing in their quest to understand feelings, they leave behind a trace of images and movement that are constantly reincorporated by human performers to engage in choreography as a medium, as a pledge and as an expression of faith – not in its spiritual sense – but as an action you take with your whole body to try to engage with another entity, a network, a consciousness or a device.

Installation view of Nina Davies,  Precursing, at Matt’s Gallery, London (2023)
A new video and sound installation in Matt’s Gallery with roaming performances in the surrounding area.

Focussing on predictive frameworks which are trained in fictional spaces like video games, Precursing considers recent non-player character dance trends seen on TikTok as a subconscious plea to escape a present which is determined by predictive technologies. In Davies’ video a fictional incident involving a self-driving car, trained to predict the movement of pedestrians, is discussed. Through two conversations between four characters issues of ghosts, ritual and the future of the justice system are raised.

Nina Davies Precursing Press Release

Installation view of Nina Davies,  Precursing, at Matt’s Gallery, London (2023)
A new video and sound installation in Matt’s Gallery with roaming performances in the surrounding area.

Nina Davies Precursing Press Release

Installation view of Nina Davies,  Precursing, at Matt’s Gallery, London (2023)
A new video and sound installation in Matt’s Gallery with roaming performances in the surrounding area.

Nina Davies Precursing Press Release

Nina Davies, Precursing, 2023
Single channel 4k video with sound
11 minutes 12 seconds

Within a system where technological growth is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, it is important to consider how the use of new technologies for storytelling affects its use in industries and fields where accuracy of information is essential. Today, AI technologies are being used within finance, law, transport, and insurance industries to predict possible futures, while also being used on social media platforms to detect ghosts. While one of these cognitive technologies needs reliable data to perform its function, the other does not. Focussing on predictive frameworks which are trained in fictional spaces like video games, Precursing considers recent non-player character dance trends seen on TikTok as a subconscious plea to escape a present which is determined by predictive technologies. In Davies’ video a fictional incident involving a self-driving car, trained to predict the movement of pedestrians, is discussed. Through two conversations between four characters issues of ghosts, ritual and the future of the justice system are raised.

Installation view of Bionic Step at Goldsmiths MFA Degree Show 2022, Goldsmiths University of London
Video and related performance

Nina Davies, Haters Will Say I’m Real, 2024
Single channel 4k film with sound
9 minutes 08 seconds

Becoming the Edit is a solo exhibition by Nina Davies, comprised of a new film, audio work,  sculptures and an installation of electronic device assemblages that responds to the viewer’s presence. A series of live performances expand the film, linking the objects and themes that run through the exhibition.

Central to the show is Haters will say I’m real (2024), a nine minute film whose narration takes the form of a podcast conversation between two unseen speakers. As the conversation unfolds between an actor describing a film role to an interviewer, it becomes clear that this show is set in a fictional near future as they discuss changes in the legal system driven by automation, technological development and the resulting ethical consequences. The film posits a hypothetical reclaiming of image rights: an assertion of control over a user’s image made through dance and specific coded movement that situates the person in their real environment. In the dance the performers revolve their phone over their body in a rapid series of poses described as an ‘edit’ because of its realtime mimicry of offline editing.

Bystander Assembly (2024) is an installation of commercially available devices: smart phones, tracking sensors and lighting units. The room is filled by these constructions and as the viewer navigates the space the units recognise and track the body and face of the visitor, activated through hand gestures. This is perhaps an unnerving act of surveillance or a welcome acknowledgement and affirmation.

Devices from the film have also emerged into the gallery. They are curious hybrid machines, a photographic ring light has been carefully moulded around a wall mounted leaf blower which supports a holographic fan, projecting glowing images into the space between itself and the viewer. These short films depict performers moving in staccato jerks and sudden changes of pace as they ‘become the edit’.

The installation and objects throughout the exhibition employ the language of contemporary online broadcast, from the streamer’s bedroom ceiling lit by LED’s, the effusive, flattering glow of the ring light, the microphone stand with pop mask to the cheap acoustic panels nailed to the wall.  The concerns that Davies forefronts in her practice are, of course, derived from current thinking around present day technological developments such as computational intelligence, predictive technology, text to video software, large language models and behaviour detection technology.

Nina’s practice is characterised by her examination of friction where technology and its users interact, notably the user’s relationship with data and their image, all with a particular and unique focus on movement and dance. Much of the research and content comes from users broadcasting across the diversity of social media, the dances derived from trends and films made for our present day platforms. Her use of speculative fiction invites the viewer (or listener) into a hypothetical near future where we might think through the ramifications of the systems we are collectively fuelling and building today.

Install view of Becoming the Edit at Seventeen, 2024

Nina Davies, Phantom Power, 2024
Wax, tracking unit, foam
218.5 x 218.5 x 25.5 cm

Nina Davies, The Gawk, 2024
Leaf blower, ring light, PLA
40.6 x 40.6 x 20.5 cm

Install view of Becoming the Edit at Seventeen, 2024

Install view of Becoming the Edit at Seventeen, 2024

Nina Davies, Techno Faith Altar, 2023
Single channel video, iPhone, ring light, holofan with video file, headphones, surgical stand, wall mount
9 minutes 33 seconds

Techno Faith Altar is a two channel video work, using an iPhone and holofan. The main video work presents a future where society’s relationship is changing to technology – changing from being linked to labour, to a coexistence with technical devices. With the advent of ‘cognitive automation services’, an aesthetic and kinetic gap is inaugurated for human dancers. The presented case of the ‘bionic step’ is an illustration of how permeable dance cultures relate to technological developments. These dances, in turn have shaped a new canon for how movement is performed, across digital spaces and bodies / avatars; in front of our phones and stepping into our machine selves. While machines keep progressing in their quest to understand feelings, they leave behind a trace of images and movement that are constantly reincorporated by human performers to engage in choreography as a medium, as a pledge and as an expression of faith – not in its spiritual sense – but as an action you take with your whole body to try to engage with another entity, a network, a consciousness or a device.

Nina Davies (b. 1991) is a Canadian-British artist who considers the present moment through observing dance in popular culture and how it is disseminated, circulated, made, and consumed. She recently graduated from Goldsmiths MFA Fine Art where she was awarded the Almacantar Studio Award and the Goldsmiths Junior Fellowship position.

Nina Davies, Techno Faith Altar, 2023
Single channel video, iPhone, ring light, holofan with video file, headphones, surgical stand, wall mount
9 minutes 33 seconds

Nina Davies, Techno Faith Altar, 2023
Single channel video, iPhone, ring light, holofan with video file, headphones, surgical stand, wall mount
9 minutes 33 seconds

Nina Davies, Bionic Step, 2023
Dance sequence, holographic fan, ring light, iPhone, video file, surgical mount

Nina Davies, Error Gap, 2024
Wax cast, tracking unit, smart phone with video file, digital print on acrylic, brackets
100 x 40  x 35 cm (40 x 16 x 14 inches)
10 minutes duration
£ 7,500 + vat

Video element from Nina Davies, Error Gap, 2024

Nina Davies, Error Gap, 2024
Wax cast, tracking unit, smart phone with video file, digital print on acrylic, brackets
100 x 40  x 35 cm (40 x 16 x 14 inches)
10 minutes duration
£ 7,500 + vat

Nina Davies, Glitch Guiser, 2022
Dance sequence, holographic fan, 360 degree video, steel, polyolefin
122 x 77 x 77 cm