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I saw the light explores the three core phases of Lindsay Seers’ work to date: ‘camera’, ‘ventriloquist’ and ‘projector’ through three DVDs, a book work and photograph. The gallery is divided into three low-ceilinged, dimly lit spaces; it is not apparent which space to enter first so choosing the space ahead of me I sit in front of a television with headphones. A film ‘Intermission’ by Steve Pearl, has been constructed in television documentary style – narrator seated in front of neutral curtains, coffee table to his right, interspersed with photographic images and film footage of Lindsay Seers and her ventriloquist dummies, ‘Stookie Bill’ (after John Logie Baird’s dummy used in early TV experiments) and ‘Candy Cannibal’. Steve Pearl narrates a brief and uncomfortably personal history of his connections with Seers. The documentary nature of this film leads me to expect ‘real’ works by Seers in the other two spaces, but in the next room ‘Extramission’ by Guinevere Doy is projected on to the wall. The artist’s mother recounts Lindsay’s early inability to speak and her jolt into speech aged eight upon seeing a photograph of herself taken by a man using a camera once belonging to Daguerre. Combined with this romanticised account are interpretations by Guinevere Doy, a Cultural Theorist, who links Seers’ speechlessness with her photographic memory: constant bombardment of images rendered her mute until the point in her life when she decided to ‘become a camera’ and reproduce the images in her head using her mouth as an aperture for photographic paper contained within. Seers’ third phase of work, ‘projector’ is a positive development from the melancholic ‘camera’ period; these images are dramatic, highly staged photographs of the artist in idyllic landscapes with strong beams of light shining directly from her eyes, like a tripod from War of the Worlds. The film ends with a cast list and disclaimer stating that the film is for ‘the sole purpose of entertainment and in no way represents the artist’s life or work.’ By now I am thoroughly confused so I move into what I conclude should be the first space, ‘camera’, where ‘The World of Jule Eisenbud’ by Rufus Eisenbud, is projected across the entire wall. Focusing on parapsychologist Jule Eisenbud’s experiments with ‘thoughtographs’ (images projected from someone’s mind onto film inside a camera), Eisenbud’s son Rufus claims his father met Lindsay Seers as she was entering her ‘camera’ phase – rather implausible as the accompanying film footage is really old, and Seers is a contemporary artist. Recalling the disclaimer at the end of the ‘projector’ film, I no longer know what to believe, and sure enough, the film ends with an ‘all characters are fictional’ disclaimer. The very definite order of phases in this artist’s work are not made apparent through the layout of the space; add to this the films which are intrinsically linked, but with no indication of when each begins. They last eleven minutes each, so unless you enter the gallery at the point when the cycle begins, you invariably start watching part of the way through every film, rendering each narrative all the more confusing because you’ve seen the end before the beginning. Seers makes explicit cultural
references in all three films (I am a Camera, John Logie Baird, Daguerre)
and cites particular themes including the paranormal, early experiments
with TV and photography, but then throws her audience with references
to unknown characters (Howard Hagen, Steve Pearl, Frank Weston). Partial
connections that left me feeling frustrated, as I really want to like
Seers’ work – her photographs are superslick, darkly comic
affairs but these films, playing with our obsession with artists’
intermingled lives and works seem more like shambolic family trees, cut
and pasted from endless Google searches.
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