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'Dilate' is an ambitious new work by Dryden Goodwin, co-commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella, Manchester Art Gallery and The New Art Gallery, Walsall.
Positioning the viewer in the centre of eight video screens that form a large octagon around them, the viewer becomes the pivot of the visual action played out in this arena. 'Dilate' has a strong sculptural presence in the gallery space allowing the work to be approached from a distance and viewed from outside the formation of screens, as well as from within it. In a series of continuous and disrupted panoramas, which depict both the mundane and the spectacular, the starting point of 'Dilate' is the individual's shifting physical and psychological relationship to the multifarious landscapes they move through.
In a series of episodes, Goodwin creates an experience of expanding and contracting horizons that challenge the viewer's perception of physical and emotional space. Goodwin creates these immersive 'wraparound' images with a specially designed 360° eight mini-DV camera rig. 'Dilate' explores a mixture of contrasting environments, both populated and unpopulated. Moving through urban and rural expanses, such as coastal locations or open land, domestic and industrial landscapes and intimate and public spaces, a range of dynamic visual and aural experiences emerge; from the still and poignant to the wild and jostling.
'Dilate' explores how our shifting sense of self inscribes our perception of space and vice versa. Faced with an expansive landscape we can feel isolated, liberated or paralysed; as part of the city, anonymous, identified or alienated; in the domesticity of our homes, safe, confined or overwhelmed; in a virtual network, empowered, remote or victimised.
In 'Dilate', Goodwin has evolved an evocative and involving language between the different environments and this innovative mode of capturing and presenting images. The dynamics of the work include hand-held sequences, static images of moving subjects, slow panning shots and the use of different zoom speeds on each camera to disrupt the panoramic vision. The soundtrack fuses the audio captured on location with additional orchestration and at times truncated spoken passages.
Dryden Goodwin (b.1971) studied at The Slade School of Fine Art and lives and works in London, UK. He works with different media including installation, video, film, sound, drawing and photography. Recent exhibitions include Clandestine at the 50th Venice Biennale (2003), The Cathedral, BALTIC, Gateshead (2003), Reality Check, Photographer's Gallery and British Council, London (2002), and solo shows, Reveal, Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire (2003) and Closer, Art Now, Tate Britain (2002). In 2002 Goodwin created the artwork and directed the first music video for Aqualung's 'Strange and Beautiful' album. www.drydengoodwin.com
Film and Video Umbrella have published a monograph publication on Dryden Goodwin's work to date as part of the Minigraphs series.
Manchester Art Gallery, 01-Nov-03 to 25-Jan-04
Mosley Street
Manchester
M2 3JL
The New Art Gallery Walsall, 30-Jul-04 to 12-Sep-04
The New Art Gallery Walsall
Gallery Square
Walsall
WS2 8LG
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