What (is) realness (is)? Or maybe more what effects it has, how we can think
about it through an idea of proof, how flimsy that is… But that has its basis on a
wafer-thin ever-evasive definition of truth. What we see, what we feel, what we
sense, what we remember, what we think, or something else? Does the real exist
in the space that we silently agree to willingly suspend our disbelief for? Ok I get
yah, for the sake of letting this conversation move on. Metaphysically and that
we will put a pin in it.
Then there is how we see ourselves too, versus a false self, how much do you
unite your Self-self with your internet self? There is not distinction; it is boring to
think there is so. How do we keep it real?
In Beyoncé and Jay Z’s On The Run tour, she juxtaposed portions of the show
as REAL LIFE (video footage of their baby, her spending time with the ocean)
with THIS IS NOT REAL LIFE (fire work display caliber performances riffing on
gangsta life).
All life is a curated life. I don’t need to see you take a shit to think that you are
real.
Conversely do we all really need to be staring down the barrel of a Johnny Depp
playing Hunter S Thompson drug induced kaleidoscopic gun to experience the
real? (The only way TV knows how to show hallucinogenics = a multicolored
rabbit hole, panning in and out like on the segues in Scooby Doo or detective
shows DIDDLE EH DIDDLE EH, DIDDLE EH DIDDLE EH) Eyes bleeding right on
the edge of it all is no closer.
There’s hyperpresence in screens… The ones in your hand, down the end of a
stick, and on our desks, knees, walls, windows, eyes. But perhaps presence is a
different conversation. Here we are talking about capturing as understanding,
artists’ attempt to pause. Blackmirror style?
The works in this show sit within the mess I just described. Trying to be a part of
it, here now, there then. Or looking at an ‘unreality’ as just as good a way to look
at reality, holding spaces in your mind. The saxophone squeaky door takes a
phenomenological approach. And together they are calm?
For the evening- the film screened looks at reality TV and will attempt to yank
you back through that rabbit hole, YouTube clips playing on the walls as you fly
back up and are vomited out. The performance on the night describes our
everyday navigation of online offerings. How glutinous information mass may
dilute a cause, and dwindle attention spans. Less calm.
Perhaps we are all doing our best to keep it real. Succeeding sometimes more
than others.
– Sophie Chapman

Claudia Capocci
Squeaky Door 2015
saxophone and door
performance
and
Samantha Russell
Back in the
Foreground 2014 oil
on canvas