Frank, Blue Oyster Art Project Space
Blue Oyster Art Project Space, Dunedin
4 October 2011 - 11 November 2011
This work is one of a series of site-responsive installations in which I have filmed my dog, Frank, exploring the empty gallery spaces. A fixed video camera was placed in each of Blue Oyster’s galleries to track Frank as he explored the spaces. The footage was then presented on three small wall-mounted tablets. The viewer becomes conscious of a prior event having taken place in the gallery, the recent history of the space is collapsed into the present and the site becomes an accrued series of events, past, present and future.
Two further videos of Frank were included in the exhibition, this time he is responding to a speaker emitting New Zealand bird songs from an old 45 record. Attempts to understand and classify animal behaviours occurs initially through the audio recording of the birds, and later the observation of the dog’s reaction to the recording. There is also a nod to the painting 'Dog looking at and listening to a Phonograph', later renamed 'His Master's Voice' used by The Gramophone Company and EMI and remains in use in the logo for HMV music store.
The installation is intended to heighten our awareness of the space that we inhabit and challenge the viewer to consider our perception of the (natural and recorded) world.
Lecture by Dr. Cecilia Novero
On November 5, 2011 Dr. Cecilia Novero, Senior Lecturer in the German Programme at the University of Otago, gave a talk, 'Facing Animals in Recent Art: An Addendum to Jenny Gillam's Dog Frank,'on the representation of animals in contemporary art, as part of the Blue Oyster Art Project Space's public lecture series.
Related projects:
Frank, The Engine Room, Tracks 1 & 2
Stills from Frank, Blue Oyster Art Project Space
