James Merrigan, GOTH-HEAD (Part 1), (video still), HDVideo, audio and text (collegiate font), 2011.
GOTH-HEAD refers to obsessions and addictions with the so-called ‘dark’ aspects of culture. It also refers to my art practice over the last 3 years, which has obsessed over such cliches, reinventing cultural beliefs with humour and potential fear from a filmic perspective.
2 previous works were chosen by the curator and 1 work was made by the artist with the theme of “multplicity” in mind. (Multiplicity is the title of the 5th chapter of Italio Calvino’s book, Six Memos, which has been the fundamental influence behind Mary Conlon’s curated project “Six Memos”).
The 3 works, which include video, audio, text , fabricated and found objects, focus on ‘multiple’ reference points from the southern gothic in William Faulkner’s prose to fabricated identity in the tones of cheer-leader chants. The titles of the works are: My Mother is a Fish (2010), Before the Cut(2008) and GOTH-HEAD (2011).
