Over Over Over
Exhibition with Tessa Lynch, Francis McKee, John Nicol and Ross Sinclair.
Commissioned by Cedric Tai for Over Over Over at Simone de Sousa Gallery, Detroit, 2015.
This work acknowledged and amplified the limitations of my ability as someone based in Glasgow to understand the specifics of Detroit by 'taking a reading' of the city, remotely creating an ad hoc portrait, through generating data off-site from the gallery. A series of benign objects served as measuring devices in this exercise – a hygrothermograph in the lobby of a bank; a bird-feeder on the exterior gallery window; rain gauges at artist-run spaces; and pedometers worn by staff at a local bakery.
The work was accompanied by a short text on the ancient practice of augury; the interpretation of bird flight, feeding, weather, or sneezes as divine signs in response to specific political and social questions about war, government, harvest, and so on.