Fieldworks
Hibernator: Prince of Petrified Forest, 2007
Great Britain, 2007
The artists Jo Joelson and Bruce Gilchrist have created an installation that extends asymmetrically through the different spaces of the gallery and offers a wide variety of information levels that challenge the spectator to take an unusual intellectual journey. Based on their interest in suspended animation, the collective proposes a surrealistic panorama that subverts one of the major icons of the 20th century: Walt Disney. In the gallery, the public meets up with an animatronic figure that is the protagonist of a series of animated films recorded during the exhibition. This robot has the physical features of Disney's head, together with the body of his most charming characters: Bambi and Thumper. The films show the fanciful Disney robot resuscitated in a world of cartoons, a knowing wink at the cryonic suspension process in which the head of the deceased Walt is kept. The character is in a natural paradise, distorted and grotesque, where he has to face up to the darkest side of his being, that which he hid from the world while he cultivated his worldwide fame and admiration. This project interprets the myths created by the culture of masses and the scientific promises of the technology society. These are examined in the gallery space by means of an almost surgical manipulation of all the elements that make up the project narrative through an open creation process. The result is a highly versatile staging and a 30-minute film that includes Pantagruelian elements of modern day.
London Fieldworks is an art partnership between Bruce Gilchrist and Jo Joelson that is renowned for the unique model offered up for creative research, collaboration and ambition for imaginatively sited projects at the interface of art, science and technology.
They characterise their practice as a poetic interpretation of scientific narrative, a cross-disciplinary enquiry into how the stories and data from human experience and natural phenomena are interpreted and manifested in both science and art.
Their most recent projects have played with scientific narratives to create speculative works of fiction; SpaceBaby (commissioned by Arts Catalyst for Space Soon, London 2006) and Hibernator: Prince of the Petrified Forest (commissioned by Beaconsfield, London 2007) are part of a trilogy exploring themes of suspended animation, inspired by the disrupted hibernation patterns of animals and recent scientific research into the potential for human hibernation. Accolades include first prize from the ICA/Toshiba Art & Innovation Award for the digital live-art installation, Divided by Resistance (1996) and a Millennium Fellowship by the Royal Society and British Association for the Advancement of Science for the telematic project Syzygy (1997-1999). The virtual daylight installation, Polaria has recently been cited in “Art And Science”, by Sian Ede published by I.B Taurus, 2005.