Gallery visit: DAVID COTTERRELL - Monsters of the Id

Based at the University of Southampton’s Highfield Campus, the John Hansard Gallery is currently showcasing ‘Monsters of the Id’, a collection of David Cotterrell’s most recent body of work.
The project was generated from his many trips to Afghanistan where he has explores the ideas around what it is like in similar military surroundings.

We all have preconceived ideas about war through seeing photographs and films. Even news bulletins have an impact on our understanding, but the question is, is this a true portrayal of life out there?  Infact, after speaking to David Cotterrell himself, he said that this study takes on a completely different perspective and presents war in a way that we expect to see it (influence of media etc.)  He doesn’t ‘dramatise war-torn environments, instead shows them like a landscape.’

The four-room exhibition enters a new kind of dimension and explores new ideas, experimenting with never been seen before technologies.  He challenges our expectations, incorporating a variety of different media such as ‘video, audio, interactive media, artificial intelligence and hybrid technology.’ (Quote from Gallery booklet)

In the video you hear David talking about his interactive landscape, Observer Effect, saying ‘As long as you are here, they will stay..’.  He went on to explain more, this projected landscape is to involve the viewers in this ‘virtual community’.  Set up with Xbox Kinect devices, it cleverly picks up human presence in the room and then the characters begin to appear/disappear according to our existence .

Search Light 2
Generative mobile data-projections

Searchlight 2, a sculpture which reflects the actions seen Observer Effect.  It represents a strip of desert terrain where shadows appear to travel across; we view it from an aerial perspective.  David spoke about this work and said that ‘none of it was made in Afghanistan, it is all real time and will never be repeated again’ – this explains contemporary artists relationship to modern day technologies.

David spoke afterwards about physically putting together this show, after a busy 3 weeks at the gallery, setting up the instillation pieces to make sure the equipment ran correctly.  Searchlight 2 uses over 1 ¼ tons of chalk which had to be imported and even new rooms had to be constructed in order for each display to be exactly how he visualised.  But before this he had 3 months of intense work getting ready for the show and 3 years for the project to mentally make sense to him.