PHIL COY : On darkness {or} the mechanical construction of random language thrown from an island into the sea (1995-2018)
Thursday 14 December from midday to midnight | free
The Brunswick Club, Bristol, BS2 8NX
Phil Coy’s micro residency at BEEF culminates in a durational performance and installation On darkness… uses collage as a technique to conflate and disturb readings of historical discourse. The work forces a marriage between artifacts linked to two of the most seminal and yet seemingly unconnected figures of 20th century avant-garde: Marcel Duchamp’s Porte-bouteilles and Jack Kerouac’s Royal typewriter. Originally used in his durational performance Langue cassée (1995), for BEEF Coy introduces a live mix of CCTV and a triangular tape delay to focus in on the minutiae of an arcane mechanical process. Evolving over the course of a day, On darkness… builds its own grammar, magnifying its language into baroque levels of information overlay.
Phil Coy is an artist working across a range of media, collaging concepts rooted in the radical art and literature of the 20th century, with languages and architectures of contemporary global commerce. In 2000, he began making work exploring the intersection between digital and analogue modes of production, with an emphasis on landscape representation. He frequently collaborates with specific communities, architects, software developers, musicians and scientists to produce digital films, generative performances, and public works.
He has shown extensively at galleries, film festivals and for site-specific and public commissions in the UK and internationally. Venues include: Waterloo Sunset at Hayward Gallery, London; Whitechapel Gallery, London; South London Gallery; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Wilkinson Gallery, London; Siobhan Davies Dance, London; Ferens Art; Gallery, Hull; FACT, Liverpool; Eastside Projects, Birmingham; National Glass Centre, Sunderland; Focal Point Gallery, Southend; Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire; Corner House, Manchester; Edinburgh City Art Centre; Sainsbury’s Centre, Norwich; Whitstable Biennale, Kent; Ev+a biennale, Limerick, Ireland; Caribbean Contemporary Arts, Trinidad; Living Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland; 58th + 59th BFI London Film Festivals; Artprojx Cinema, Armory Show, New York; LOOP Festival, Barcelona.