Press Release

AT GATE brings together video works by 6 artists made between 2015 and 2022. The recent past re-calibrated. The works utilize: deep fake technology, surveillance, body cams, screen-grabbing, live broadcast, found footage, repetition, loops and text graphics. Amounting to an erotic and violent ecological system of moving image that places the body and objecthood in varying spatial and psychological states. AT GATE is the nowhere position, on hold, entrapped. A forensic processing of capture.

A prologue to the exhibition is a monitor with a silent loop. Déjà Vu (2022) by Shuang Li. Unable to attend her own exhibition opening in Shanghai, Shuang hired a group of twenty extras. They were dressed in identical outfits to simulate the artist and multiply herself in her absence. The actors filmed the event with spy cams hidden in their sunglasses. The footage captured by the lookalikes, alternates with footage filmed by a camera attached to the neck of a white duck at an animal shelter in Geneva. The contrast evoking a lack of human presence, and a sense of displacement.

In the centre of the basement is a large single projection with an ordered program of videos by: Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Jessi Reaves, Lena Tutunjian and Ian Wooldridge.

Sidsel Meineche Hansen’s work End-Used City 2077 (2019) is split into 3 parts. The videos follow a female character, in the role of a lethargic double agent, surveilling the city. Combining footage shot in London with the voiceover of a sexrobot, the chapters explore a growing economy built on the monetisation of personal and behavioural data from a first-person perspective.

Grey ladder back to where you were (2021) by Jessi Reaves, was a component of the sculpture Personal Heat (2021). The video navigates a defunct domestic environment. The protagonist, a juvenile, guides the camera through the space with actions of renovation and rebellion. A sledgehammer slams onto cement, a hand pushes through plaster board, dust is analysed, embracing destruction and reconstructing hierarchies of functionality.

Mixed within the central projected reel are three works by Lena Tutunjian: she_stays_underground (2017); I chose not to choose life (2015); and The soul of man (2020).

Like a Dog Sat in Oil (2017) by Ian Wooldridge places found footage of a dog sat in a puddle watching other dogs fuck, with black and white soft focus nude photography and a voice describing another artist’s hermetic installation “behind four Perspex walls” …. Cutting in and out throughout the video is the sound of a dial up tone, creating and releasing pressure within, what seems, a sealed container. Meso Systems Bouyed (2018) shows footage of a live broadcast, two guys earning cash. Their workspace, a jacuzzi.  They listen to house music and wage euphoria. APEX (2017) also footage of a live broadcast, captures an aftermath. A body ending it’s shift. In center frame sits a model of an apex predator. The large fiberglass great white shark peers out from the sofa while the body clears the debris.

In the far back corner sits a CRT monitor with Bootleg Oracle (2020) by Alfatih. Placed as if a hidden track. Bootleg Oracle uses a synthetic media software to animate domestic objects with the voices of political leaders delivering speeches. The voices of leaders across the globe, who attempt to pacify and manipulate via political speech, is seen instead creeping into domestic voids, acting as the occupant of dim unpeopled rooms.

Alfatih (b. 1995, CH) lives and works in Switzerland. He has presented interactive, installation and video works in institutions and spaces such as Swiss Institute, New York (US); Kora Arts Center, Castrignano (IT); Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne (CH); Fri Art Kunsthalle, Fribourg (CH);  Haus der Elektronische Kunst, Basel (CH) and Circuit, Lausanne (CH).

Shuang Li (b. 1990) in Wuyi Mountains, China. Lives and works in between Berlin, DE and Geneva, CH. Selected for the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, The Milk of Dreams (2022). Recent solo exhibitions include nobody's home, Peres Projects, Berlin, DE (2022) Among Us, Cherish, Geneva, CH (2021), I Want to Sleep More but by Your Side, Peres Projects, Berlin (2020), Intro to Civil War, Open Forum, Berlin (2019), If Only the Cloud Knows, SLEEPCENTER, New York (2018), Comment il s’appelle, Lab 47, Beijing (2016).

Jessi Reaves lives and works in Queens, New York. Recent solo and two person exhibitions include All possessive lusts dispelled, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL (2023);  At the well, Bridget Donahue, New York, NY (2022); Wild Life: Elizabeth Murray & Jessi Reaves at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas and The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia (2021). She exhibited at the Carnegie International, 57th Edition, Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, PA (2018) and the Whitney Biennial 2017, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2017).

Lena Tutunjian was born in Doha and currently lives in London. Past solo and two person shows include Give Yourself The Mic, Guzzler, Melbourne, Australia (2022); The soul of man, Guzzler, Melbourne, Australia (2020-21); Days of the week, Jo Brand, Glasgow (2019); Have you considered deletion?, Luma Westbau, Zurich (2018); she_stays_underground_western_life, Svetlana, New York (2017); All the lies that keep the dream alive, Penarth Centre, London (2016); CUANA, Limazulu, London (2015) and Life Gallery presents Gili Tal and Lena Tuntunjian, Life Gallery, London (2014).

Sidsel Meineche Hansen (b. 1981) lives and works in London and Copenhagen. Selected for the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, The Milk of Dreams (2022). Solo exhibitions include: Welcome to End-Used City – Chisenhale Gallery, London (2019). An Artist’s Guide, SMK - The National Gallery of Denmark (2019); Real Doll Theatre, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; End-user, Kunsthal Århus, Denmark; OVER, Index Stockholm, Sweden (2018); OVER, Ludlow 38, New York City (2017); No Right Way 2 Cum, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow; SECOND SEX WAR, Gasworks, London (both 2016); ONE-self, Temporary Gallery & Kunstler House Bremen, Germany (2015); and INSIDER, CUBITT, London (2014).

Ian Wooldridge (b. 1982 ) lives and works in London and Zurich. He has exhibited and performed at: Kunsthalle Zurich (2022); Centre d’Art contemporain, Geneva (2021); Kunsthalle Fri-Art, Fribourg (2020); ICA, London (2019); Istituto Svizzero, Rome (2019); Nuit Blanche, Paris Arts Lab (2019); The Cruising Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale, (2018); LUX, London (2018); Folkwang Museum, Essen (2018).

 — Ian Wooldridge