Vendredi 03 Août 2012 15:13:22 par actuphoto dans Expositions

Observations Open Eye Gallery premieres two new projects by UK photographer Christopher Stewart. Continuing his exploration of the international security industry, Stewart takes us on a photographic journey through the darkened interior of a house in Arkansas in which private military personnel are prepared for service in the "War on Terror". His second project, a two-screen video installation, sets its sights on the surveillance systems installed above the Port of Gibraltar, looking out to sea, to Africa and beyond. 'Kill House" (2005) is a series of photographs of a house in Arkansas, USA that was built for the purpose of training private military personnel to clear domestic houses in conflict zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. The deserted interiors resemble a grim stage-set constructed from scarred and smoke-damaged concrete and iron, punctuated by occasional, skeletal props of abandoned furniture. "The 'architect' of this building imagines a dystopian scenario, a polarised version of the American domestic house where form follows fear rather than function" (Christopher Stewart). Stewart's video installation 'Levanter' (2002) takes its name from a meteorological phenomenon that forms for a few days a year between Africa and Europe in the Straits of Gibraltar. The Levanter cloud envelops the summit of the Rock of Gibraltar and the military base that is built on it. Stewart's video shows us a military surveillance/monitoring tower, shrouded in mist, and Levanter-obscured views down to the port, the Straits and the African coast. "The two images represent both the limits and the freedoms of globalisation: the need on the one hand for close monitoring and paranoia and on the other for free trade and freedom of movement of goods and people. The appearance of the Levanter seems to symbolically suggest the limitations of both enterprises" (Christopher Stewart). Editors Note: Supportive Quote 'Christopher Stewart's powerfully disorienting photographs detonate ourOrwellian anxieties... [they are]...preliminary studies in the banality of dystopia." Mike Davis, 2003 - American social commentator, urban theorist and sociographer. © Christopher Stewart