Panel Statement
Panel: Data Disinformation
After a residency in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, artist David Cotterrell experimented in subverting the hierarchy of documentary materials as exemplified in imagery of the representation of war. His particular concern was around the way in which images and ideas about communities, landscape and history have been mediated in the representation of conflct. More recently, Cotterrell has been incorporating a concern for the complexity of the issues presented by war that are often absent in media representation. This paper will explore mechanisms to challenge the most appropriated formats of narrative visualisation in order to question the validity of authoritative views. He will discuss how his work begins to transcend the representation of war to explore in constructed contexts the process of mediation and our complicit relationship with the screen. Through an interest in paranoia and dislocation he extrapolates existing commonplace conventions in documentary/journalistic photography and moving image, painting, cinematic, literary, simulation and gaming constructs. By shifting the context, questioning the authority of the content and by testing the limitations of the technology, Cotterrell seeks to create an environment that challenges our confident belief in our understanding of the extent of narrative vocabularies in documentary. By experimentally exploring the limitations and points of failure of modes of communication and data visualisation, Cotterrell seeks to shift critical focus from the mediated spectacle to the medium of communication itself.
- David Cotterrell is an installation artist working across varied media including video, audio, interactive media, artificial intelligence, device control and hybrid technology. His work exhibits political, social and behavioural analyses of the environments and contexts, which he and his work inhabit. Over the last ten years, his work has been extensively commissioned and exhibited in North America, Europe and the Far East, in gallery spaces, museums and within the public realm. Recent exhibitions include: Eastern Standard: Western Artists in China at MASS MoCA, Massachusetts, War and Medicine at the Wellcome Collection, London and Map Games at the Today Museum of Modern Art, Beijing and Birmingham City Art Gallery. He is Professor of Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University and has been a consultant to strategic masterplans, cultural and public art policy for urban regeneration, healthcare and growth areas. He is represented by Danielle Arnaud contemporary art and is currently researching and developing new work with advanced simulation company Rockwell Collins, with the support of an Arts Council England fellowship.
davidcotterrell.com
Full text (PDF) p. 544-549 [different title!]