Situated within the installation it’s after the end, my site-specific multimedia piece Attention to Detail had its premiere in London yesterday. The broader show features a collection also including works by Fabricio Mattos, Elias Brown and Janell Yeo that reflects on themes “of perspective, obsession, the passage of time, and the nature of practise itself.”
Attention focuses on the role of metronome as taskmaster, demanding exacting precision from its laborers, while its larger-than-life reflection in a pair of mirrors, along with the viewer’s own reflection, creates a space like an uncanny practice room and questions the interplay of perfectionism and narcissism. It seems to ask: who really calls the shots here, man or machine?
The relentless ticking of clocks and metronomes generates anxiety about the passage of time, which stands in stark contrast with the video’s demand that the viewer calmly observe subtle changes in the environment. Occasional instrumental performances are visible along the inner edge of either mirror – this reflection is of a window that opens into a small room, and the live sound material, including passages from a scales book and Thea Musgrave’s piece Narcissus, is artificially piped into the installation space.
Excerpts from the scores of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 and Haydn’s No. 101 decorate an outer wall of the viewing booth, offering a lighthearted inside joke for anyone who recognizes the movements’ nicknames.