Statement
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
-Arthur C Clarke
-Arthur C Clarke
“Channelling Sessions” (later titled, “The Last Medium”) was really the start of my practice. In this performance work, I invited three participants (channellers) to tune into the white noise in-between radio stations using an am radio. It is said that by listening to this white noise you can hear the big bang and the beginning of the universe. Once tuned into these sounds, the channellers begin to sing or mimic what they hear, producing a cacophony of sound that shift between the comprehensible and incomprehensible. Through this process the channellers shift between multi-dimensions, into the deep past through the present and into the future. In this work the channellers are based on the three norns (sometimes called witches or mediums), who in legend had special capabilities to see in the past, present, and future.
"Channelling Sessions" was first publicly performed as part of: "Plastique Fantastique in the Bug House: Clearing All Channels" alongside Bughouse, Kunst, and Oreet Ashery at FA Projects gallery, London. Since first performing this work, I have developed it through performances in Hong Kong, China; and Cork, Ireland. Each repetition of this performance brings new cacophonies and implications. My work has since extended out to include text, sound, photography, painting, ritual performances and curatorial projects that all play at the perimeters of myth, history, science, art-politics and magic.
"Channelling Sessions" was first publicly performed as part of: "Plastique Fantastique in the Bug House: Clearing All Channels" alongside Bughouse, Kunst, and Oreet Ashery at FA Projects gallery, London. Since first performing this work, I have developed it through performances in Hong Kong, China; and Cork, Ireland. Each repetition of this performance brings new cacophonies and implications. My work has since extended out to include text, sound, photography, painting, ritual performances and curatorial projects that all play at the perimeters of myth, history, science, art-politics and magic.
Bio
Catherine Harrington was trained as an artist and art historian at Goldsmiths College and Leeds University in the UK, and now lives and works in Japan while teaching at Tokyo University of the Arts. Working across various mediums including performance, photography, essays and curation; Harrington’s practice treads at the perimeters of myth, science, ritual and art-politics. Harrington has exhibited and curated in the UK and internationally: at FA projects, London, UK (artist); the Cattle Depot Gallery, Hong Kong (artist, curator); NW Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark (curator); Halle 14, Leipzig, Germany (curator); BUoY, Tokyo, Japan (curator); Datsuijo, Tokyo, Japan (curator); Launch Pad Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (artist); among others. In current research, Harrington is walking through the symbols, cultural imaginings and monuments of the Anthropocene to ask questions about how the character of life, culture and contemporary art may be transforming under capitalism, and in confrontation with the urgent human and nonhuman crises of the present moment.