- Venue
- Goth on Bus
- Starts
- Friday, February 26, 2010
- Ends
- Friday, March 19, 2010
- Address
- 139 Greenwich South Street, London. SE10 8NX
- Location
- London
Goth on Bus is pleased like to present Monument to the Alphabet, a solo exhibition by the British artist James Irwin. The eponymous Monument to the Alphabet, 2009, consists of sixteen wall mounted flourescent fixings. Visitors are invited to interact with the installation through a plinth-mounted interface and, by using a sliding mechanism, can instantly reconfigure the lighting in order to create characters from the English alphabet. The second work in the show, ON/OFF(OFF/ON), 2009, is a single white neon. Visitors may also engage with this work via remote control, turning each word off (and it’s opposite on), or each word on (and it’s opposite off). Irwin’s work is posited in the gap between ‘new media art’ and ‘high art’, and by using tropes from both (sculptural plinths, neon and an interactive element), attempts to render this gap non-existant. He describes the work as being made in ‘response to throw-away status updates on Facebook or Twitter’ and as such Monument to the Alphabet sits as a direct challenge to a viewer/user attempting to write sentences using one six foot letter at a time. However, in contrast to this, it is the letter-forms that illuminate the space with a cool white glow, transforming the gallery into a spiritual space, giving the alphabet a kind of religious status.
