Gareth Hudson
Touring
For further details on our touring portfolio please contact Rachel Cunningham Clark rc@forma.org.uk
Premiered
23 October 2015 – 20 May 2016
Globe Gallery, Newcastle, UK
Credits
Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt was created by Gareth Hudson in 2015. Supported by Arts Council England, Newcastle Institute for Creative Arts Practice, EngageFMS, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt is a trilogy of video art installations that puts audience experience as paramount. Through precise and considerate techniques in video, audio and projection; the work aims to arouse a sublime intervention between itself and its participants. With material being gathered from both Asia and Europe, the process has included discourse and consultation with Tibetan Buddhist monks, Anglican Church Leaders, chamber choirs, engineers, neuroscientists, theoretical cosmologists, quantum physicists, string quartets, and aerial acrobats.
Installation view, Gareth Hudson, Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt (Work I), Globe Gallery, Newcastle, 2015. Courtesy Globe Gallery Archive. Photo © Colin Davison
Installation view, Gareth Hudson, Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt (Work I), Globe Gallery, Newcastle, 2015. Courtesy Globe Gallery Archive. Photo © Colin Davison
Installation view, Gareth Hudson, Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt (Work I), Globe Gallery, Newcastle, 2015. Courtesy Globe Gallery Archive. Photo © Colin Davison
Work I
Work I, a collaboration between Gareth Hudson and sound artist Toby Thirling, takes four possible moments of sublime transcendence and then abstracts them through light and sound to reduce, refine and deliver an immersive installation.
From four field recordings recorded by Hudson in various situations, Thirling employs a variety of techniques in sound design and sound synthesis to re-imagine the moments. The resulting soundscape is re-constructed through an environment of projection, light and surround sound.
Installation view, Gareth Hudson, Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt (Work II), Globe Gallery, Newcastle, 2015. Courtesy Globe Gallery Archive. Photo © Colin Davison
Installation view, Gareth Hudson, Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt (Work II), Globe Gallery, Newcastle, 2015. Courtesy Globe Gallery Archive. Photo © Colin Davison
Installation view, Gareth Hudson, Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt (Work II), Globe Gallery, Newcastle, 2015. Courtesy Globe Gallery Archive. Photo © Colin Davison
Installation view, Gareth Hudson, Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt (Work II), Globe Gallery, Newcastle, 2015. Courtesy Globe Gallery Archive. Photo © Colin Davison
Work II
Work II, a video installation filmed across Asia and Europe, is an attempt to find a dialogue that speaks of universals in scenes of Buddhists in prayer, sprawling Japanese Metropolises, makeshift cosmos and German airports. Accompanying these images is a score arranged by Phil Begg; an ode to Blind Willie Johnson's 'Dark was the night', re-imagined by a plethora of musicians. A song that has now traveled further than anyone, or anything, into interstellar space aboard NASA's Voyager I.
Work III
Work III began as a collaboration with Andy Hanson, an EEG Technologist at Newcastle University’s Institute of Neuroscience. An EEG recording of Gareth Hudson's brain was filtered through a custom piece of software that was used to simulate what would happen to these brain waves during a fatal cardiac arrest. The results were used by Phil Begg who translated the data for a string quartet as part of a soundscape. The work aims to evoke aspects of Martin Heidegger's "Being-Towards-Death".
Gareth Hudson is a video artist based in north east England. He has exhibited work in over 15 countries and has worked with Saatchi & Saatchi, the BBC, the BFI and MTV as well as completing commissions for numerous festivals and events. He was selected for Northern Graduates on completion of his degree, has received a Digital City Fellowship with the Institute of Digital Innovation and is currently funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. His work ranges from installation to single screen projections and is concerned with the contemporary sublime, spiritual or transcendent experience, and examining how the moving image can shape our relationship to these themes.