2-channel looped video installation
In this polarising setup, Configure Crude Complexities considers the material properties and cycle of two highly specialised centres of production within heavy and fragile industries.
The work centres the monotony of semi-automated processes involved in the transformation of raw materials through metal forming and glass blowing, documented in both the Sheffield Forgemasters (global leader in steel production and engineering) and Lumsdale Glass (traditional glass blowing studio).
Rendering the processes of melting, boring, forming and reshaping as abstract frames on screen, Configure Crude Complexities explores the unexpected formal and rhythmic qualities within manufacturing itself, through a carefully choreographed sequence of observations.
Underpinning these glossy documented sequences, Cutts largely draws towards the intricacies of bespoke manufacturing, and the moments when semi-automated processes are interrupted or augmented by human or mechanical intervention to produce unexpected outcomes.
In metal forming, each machine must be configured and monitored in a small capacity throughout the process by human, and as nothing is mass produced here, each setup warrants a different configuration initially. The other, a more hand held approach to accurate production completion is warranted.
So what happens when a good communication isn't reached between supervisor and machine, the machine may display fault through a significant way of the fabrication process, causing inaccuracies in the end product.
Configure Crude Complexities was originally commissioned and curated for Construction House: Radical Materials, in response to loaned works from collections including Marianne Brandt's Desk Set & László Moholy-Nagy's Ein Lichtspiel: Schwarz Weiss Grau [A Lightplay: Black White Gray] (1930).
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CCC was recently part of Show Your Metal, on loan to the Millennium Gallery, displayed alongside supporting material in gold-plated CPUs, extracted from 60 electronic appliances during their recycling process.
Following on from Show Your Metal, the installation was exhibited in Somos Naturaleza, a socio-ecological informed international group exhibition at the Centro de Arte Molino Machmar in Puerto Varas, Chile.