Limelight, 2009

Limelight
Kathleen Herbert, 2009
HD Video projection, Duration 6 mins 40 secs

Limelight is a video piece specially commissioned by The Royal Opera House in London.

The starting point was Herbert’s discovery that limelight was first used by a theatre on the site in 1837, previously Limelight had been used in the field of surveying. In an empty & darkened auditorium, a ballerina holds a limelight as she performs a piece from Odile & Odette. Through the performance the light maps the space catching glimpses of the architectural of the building

Exhibitions

• Deloitte Ignite 09 curated by Time Out Magazine, Royal Opera House, London, UK, 2009 Info
• Triumph Of The Will, Camberwell College Of The Arts, London, UK, 2012 Info

Press

• Time Out, Going Through The Pain Barrier.
• Time Out,  State of the Art, Rachel Halliburton, September 2009, p19
• The Sunday Times Culture Magazine,  Creativity to burn David Jays, 30^th August 2009, p26

De Magnete
Kathleen Herbert, 2009
16mm film  projection, Duration 7 mins

De Magnete is a 16mm film responding to the theories of 16th c. scientist William Gilberd. The piece is a poetic interpretation of Gilberd’s belief that the world possessed a soul. It is his related discovery of electrostatic properties and magnetism through experiments with amber and lodestones which won him the title of the Father of Electrcity.

In De Magnete the viewer is taken on an uncanny journey through a pine forest, the camera acts as a hidden force drawing the viewer further into the forest. As dusk falls so the camera reaches its destination; radiating through the darkness is a neon sign reading Gillberds scientific quest, to find the soul of material.

De Magnete was commissioned by firstsite in Colchester

Exhibitions

• De Magnete, Holy Trinity Church Colchester, 2009
• Artisterium, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2015. Catalogue Info

Press

• The Guardian Guide, Exhibition Preview by Jessica Lack, 12th September 2009 Read
• Ayla Lepine, ‘”The Soul of Material“: Ernesto Neto, Do Ho Suh and Kathleen Herbert Considered’, in Rina Arya (ed), Contemplations of the Spiritual in Contemporary Art, Peter Lang, 2013 Info

Grande Spagna
Kathleen Herbert, 2005
8 Monitor DVD Installation, Various durations

Grande Spagna is a response to a period of research based at the Mission to Seafarers Centre, Avonmouth Bristol. The final work developed from a voyage on a cargo ship from Antwerp to Bristol and was exhibited at Huller House an empty dockside warehouse within the city centre.

The 8-monitor DVD installation shows a series of individual details from the journey, images, which persistently focus on the banal and everyday in this highly, technologised industry. But these images also offer clues to counteract the technological environment, clues which alluded to human needs of faith, hope, and belief.

The arrangements of the details within the space were in consideration to the site, choreographing the viewer to work in tandem with the piece.

Commissioned by Picture This Moving Image, Situations & Bristol City Council as part of Thinking Of The Outside a scattered site exhibition around Bristol City Docks.

Exhibitions

• Thinking Of The Outside, Huller House, Bristol, UK, 2005 . Catalogue Info

Press

• Robin Wilson, ‘Things here are subject unto change’, Art and Architecture Journal, 2005, p. 10