Two new moving-image commissions by early career artists Patrick Hough and Lawrence Lek made in response to the curatorial theme Neither One Thing or Another.
Patrick Hough’s work, And If In A Thousand Years, takes us to the Californian desert, where the landscape was filmed and digitally scanned using LiDAR, to host a Hollywood-inspired merging of authenticity and replica.
Lawrence Lek’s work, Geomancer, harnesses his trademark – the building blocks of computer gaming technology – to set the stage for an awakening of artificial intelligence. This computer-generated ghost in the machine discovers its own autonomy, and ponders the range and limits of its post-human powers of creativity.
The artists were selected from over 250 applications in response to open call to UK artists within the first five years of establishing their practice. Each artist received production support from FVU, in order to develop the new works.
The selectors were: Steven Bode, Director, FVU; Duncan Campbell, artist and Turner Prize 2014 winner; Cliff Lauson, Curator, Hayward Gallery; Amy Sherlock, Reviews Editor, Frieze; and Sarah Williams, Head of Programme, Jerwood Visual Arts.
The Jerwood/FVU Awards are a major annual opportunity for moving-image artists run in partnership by Jerwood Charitable Foundation and FVU. They were established in 2012 in response to a need for significant major commissions for early-career moving-image artists at an unproven stage in their practice, and contribute to an ongoing dialogue around urgent or timely concerns within moving image through the curatorial theme, which changes each year. Alumni include Ed Atkins, Corin Sworn, Emma Hart and Marianna Simnett.