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UPDATED: LONDON JAN 2010
SOLO EXHIBITION
THE CASSIOPEIA PLAN
16 Jan - 28 Feb 2010
Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire, UK
The Cassiopeia Plan, 7 min. (production still)
The Cassiopeia Plan, installation shot, Wysing Arts Centre
The Cassiopeia Plan is an informal trilogy of three video works that together offer a narrative journey for the viewer to travel through and reflect upon. In the works, Waller proposes ideas of cooperation and redemption; in manoeuvring out of dead-ends and towards new unlikely visions.
White Stag, 2001 consists of a film, a drawing and a sculptural work and is a humorous adaptation of the ancient Roman myth of Diana and Actaeon. Actaeon, who having accidentally seen Diana bathing is changed by her into a stag. Reinterpreting Actaeon’s desire, depicted by the Roman poet Ovid’s original myth, Waller locates the narrative within a modernist, open-air swimming pool. The Cassiopeia Plan begins therefore with two individuals faltering on the brink of a journey towards the white stag’s idyllic pastoral landscape. In the work, Diana’s binoculars lead us into a sublime vision.
Within the gallery installation, a Bedouin tent offers a strange, intimate and idyllic space for contemplation and relaxation, in which different films are presented including a yoga instruction video and a meditative image showing a Moroccan fountain. As part of the tent, a carpet presents several reference books that encourage further discovery.
Towards the rear of the gallery Waller’s latest work, commissioned by Wysing Arts Centre, is shot on location at the Centre and including a cast of participants all of whom came forward following a public call late last year. In the film Waller examines further improbable encounters of different narratives and spaces. The work reflects on the relationship between the individual and the collective; influenced by the absurd and satirical paradox created by GK Chesterton in The Man who was Thursday. In the 1908 novel, a poet is forced into a conflict between the forces of structure and anarchy, unaware of how intertwined the competing forces are. Waller’s film is inspired by this improbable story and the momentum of being together; albeit in unexpectedly changing roles and actions. The work references even more unlikely action; from the fascinating horror film Dead of Night (1945), and local encounters beyond Wysing are weaved through the work.
EVENTS CURATED BY MARK AERIAL WALLER
Thursday 21 January - Sunday 21 March
THURSDAY 21 January, 6-8pm : EVENT
The Wayward Canon Presents: La Société des Amis de Judex III
The Wayward Canon, founded by artist Mark Aerial Waller in 2001, is a shifting platform for the re-evaluation of cinema. La Société des Amis de Judex III is a provocative reconsideration of Surrealism. It aligns Guillaume Apollinaire’s poetry, 1960s Batman and Louis Feuillade's Judex with a smoke machine. Previously presented at Tate Modern, FACT, Liverpool and Objectif, Belgium
THURSDAY 4 February, 6-8pm
READING / IN CONVERSATION with Tom McCarthy
McCarthy reads from his best selling novel Remainder, a novel to be read for the existential discomfort that it leaves you with. It attempts to re-enact the soul and its connection to the material world, and cleverly poses the question who is observing who and what is the real self. Mark Aerial Waller reads from GK Chesterton’s early 20th century classic, The Man Who Was Thursday – the book that inspired his recent film commission for Wysing. Readings followed by a conversation between novelist and artist.
THURSDAY 18 February, 6-8pm
FILM SCREENING Invasion - Hugo Santiago
Mike Sperlinger, Director of LUX – the agency for artists' moving image - introduces the film Invasión, 1969 by Argentine Director Hugo Santiago. 123 minutes. English sub-titles. Invasión – a gem of south American cinema - is the metaphysical and poetical tale of the besieged city of Aquila. Following a chequered history that saw it banned by the Argentine authorities in 1974, at which time the film negative was stolen and suppressed until its restoration in 2000. Written by Jose Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares Invasión is ultimately about resistance. In the words of Bioy Casares “Homer will forgive me: the heart is always on the side of those who resist.” The screening will be followed by a short discussion.
SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, 6 & 7 March, 12-4pm SPECIAL EVENT
FRANCE FICTION
Mark Aerial Waller has invited Paris based collective France Fiction to make a special event that will encompass the fields of science fiction, utopias, gaming and narrative processes. France Fiction is an artistic and curatorial entity running an art space in Paris since 2004. France Fiction develops collective art projects, performances, installations, films and writings.
SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, 20 & 21 March, 12-4pm SPECIAL EVENT
BROWN MOUNTAIN COLLEGE
Mark Aerial Waller has invited Brown Mountain College to provide a weekend course for all to attend. The current Deans of Brown Mountain College were appointed to revive an avant-garde ethos of collaboration between artists, dancers, actors, filmmakers, political activists and comedians. The Deans are Mel Brimfield, Sally O’Reilly and Ben Roberts. The college has no buildings and no permanent staff or pupils: it is a notional institution that constantly reinvents its own history and can change shape to accommodate each new project. The College claims such influential faculty and alumni as Paul Robeson, John Cage and Lamb Chop!