Raise the Red Flag

Other Work: 'Wallpaper'

This artwork was installed in the Sun Room at Kentish Town Heath Centre.

The viewer is invited to question to what extent technology has become the background to our everyday lives. To consider whether our attitudes to wealth and status are changing in an online world.

"Despite (...) controversies on the themes of taste and class, wallpaper has (...) been appreciated as an expensive and luxurious decoration, as well as a ‘make-do’ substitute."

A Short History of Wallpaper V&A Museum

True to the ephemeral nature of wallpaper, the piece was accidentally removed after only a week by decorators employed by the building's landlord.

Displaying instead a photo documenting the original installation further interrogated the notion of "materiality" in both its senses: in an age of cloud computing what is the significance of the physical? Is the physical any more or less ephemeral the digital world?

Context: Communication in a digital world

Society and the way we interact with each other is being profoundly changed by digital technology.

MIT Prof. Sherry Turkle talks about her book Alone Together, making the case that we are ever connected but not present: emailing in meetings, texting at funerals. We are afraid of intimacy, distancing ourselves via our devices to keep control and present our best selves.

In this environment:

If we are unwell, how do we decide when and to whom to speak? What language can we use to ensure our distress is fully understood?
To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan's "the medium is the message," how does speaking face to face, via text or email influence the way our words are perceived?
Within this tidal wave of digital communication, how can we see when someone is in distress?
How can this topic be approached to remove the stigma from the discussion?

"Speech is free perhaps, but I am less free than before. I no longer succeed in knowing what I want, the space is so saturated, the pressure so great from all who want to make themselves heard."

Baudrillard

'Raise the Red Flag' (2016), mixed materials

(installation view)

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A multitude of Health and Safety notices instruct us each day ensure our physical wellbeing. The semiotics of their crisp colours and their terse messages demand we pay attention. Yet in their ubiquity they risk being ignored.

For many employees the upshot of job insecurity and digital technology are ever increasing hours, rising stress levels, and higher likelihood of mental illness.

'Raise the red flag' outlines a procedure for reacting to mental health emergencies. This notice is displayed on a stand with two flags for use in signalling distress.

It was exhibited as part of the show "I knew who I was" at Kentish Town Health Centre Jan- Mar 2016.

Raise the Red Flag

'Raise the Red Flag II' (2016), digital film, 3m 41

'Raise the Red Flag II'

In April 2016 I took the sculpture out of the Health Centre, visiting London Bridge during morning rush hour.

to see the flags in a new context
to examine the reactions of the public to them
to see how documenting the flags via film would alter them as a work

Context: Artist References

In Roman Signer’s experiments inanimate objects move or become anthropomorphised due to the artist's actions.

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Michael Landy, 'Self Portrait as a rubbish bin' (2012)

painted bronze

Context: Artist References

Both Gavin Turk's 'Trash,' black painted bronze bin bags, and Michael Landy's 'Self Portrait as a rubbish bin' employ trompe l'oeil effects.

In Turk's piece, individuals and society can be defined equally by what we discard as that which we revere.

In a consumer society where communi-cation is cheap, what price a true connection with another human being?

Do no harm

In making the sign, it became important to be responsible and create a viable process.

The instruction to call 999 was added in later drafts.

Humorous anachronism

Flags are laborious, impractical and necessitate the use of a language foreign to most people. Nor do they allow a private conversation.

Yet otherwise the installation replicated the authoritative look and feel of such artefacts.

Making

Created in Illustrator, the notices use both existing icons and new creations.

Digitally printed on satin paper, the use of the colourway and the font were chosen to mimic real notices.

'Wallpaper' (2016) Digital print on wallpaper

Original installation view

Wallpaper