Archived exhibition
Scott Smith: The South Georgia Effect
Date: 20 January 2016 - 23 January 2016
Gallery: Centrespace
Centrespace at the Visual Research Centre invite you to attend the reception for Scott Smith’s exposition of artistic research and work on Friday 22nd January at 5.30pm.
The South Georgia Effect is informed by Smith’s three month research trip to the abandoned whaling stations of South Georgia Island, a British territory in the southern Atlantic Ocean where he continued his ongoing research into the ’Spirit of Place'. In The South Georgia Effect the artist employs projected video, CGI synthesis, stop-frame animation and immersive olfactory installation, to give a sense of the setting of the Island, creating an environment that encourages both active participation as well as passive contemplation. During the exhibition, the renowned play A Cinema in South Georgia will be performed in the gallery in the midst of Smith’s art work.
In 2013/14 Smith was funded to travel to and live on the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia as part of his PhD research based in the Centre for Remote Environments at University of Dundee. In order to reach the remote destination he travelled on a 20-hour military flight from the RAF Brize Norton station in Oxfordshire, stopping midway to refuel on Ascension Island in the equatorial South Atlantic, eventually arriving in the Falkland Islands. From there he travelled via ship on a six-day sea journey to South Georgia to live among mainly British Antarctic Survey staff resident on the island. South Georgia, formerly uninhabited and visited by sealers, was the centre of the Antarctic whaling industry of the early 20th Century and is now a destination for Antarctic tourism as well as an important and regulated fishery.
In his research, Smith explores ‘Spirit of Place’, a concept which intertwines tangible heritage (such as physical remains) and intangible heritage (such as community and human stories) together. At South Georgia he encountered the site mainly on his photograph-taking walks in the ruins of the abandoned station and representation of the walks became an interest in and of itself. Smith is interested in production techniques for the emerging discipline of virtual and augmented realities. This exhibition presents an opportunity for him to explore how the physical gallery space can serve as a design/process test-bed for ‘virtuality’.
A Cinema in South Georgia is a play written by Jeffrey Mayhew and Susan Wilson-daughter of whaler William Watt, and brings to life the experience of a troupe of Scottish whalers in South Georgia.
Scott Smith is a PhD candidate at DJCAD University of Dundee and a senior lecturer in computer animation at Swansea College of Art, University of Wales Trinity Saint David.
*For more on 'Spirit of Place', see the Quebec Declaration on the Preservation for Spirit of Place
Exhibition Hours
Wednesday 20 - Saturday 23 January 2016
11:00 am to 6:00 pm
Friday 22nd January
5:30 pm Reception, refreshments provided
6:30 pm Performance, A Cinema in South Georgia
Saturday 23rd January
2:00 pm to 6:00 pm
3:30 pm Performance, A Cinema in South Georgia
6:30 pm Performance, A Cinema in South Georgia
More Information:
A Cinema in South Georgia website: https://www.facebook.com/ACinemaInSouthGeorgia
The Centre for Remote Environments at University of Dundee: http://sites.dundee.ac.uk/cre
Community page for South Georgia: https://www.facebook.com/TheSouthGeorgiaEffect/
The South Georgia Effect Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/604592233012543/
Centrespace is in the Visual Research Centre, DJCAD and is located on the lower floors of Dundee Contemporary Arts, 152 Nethergate, Dundee.
