When did you acquire the space and how did the project take off from there?<\/strong><\/p>\nIt was our studio three years prior to it opening as a gallery. We opened in February, and Les T\u00e9l\u00e9visions is or fifth and final show for the year.<\/p>\n
How many screens will be on display?<\/strong><\/p>\nProbably 13 in total. We\u2019ll stack them on top of each other \u2013 mainly in the large window, and a few in the side window. All the films will be on rotation \u2013 so it\u2019s not as if it\u2019ll exhibit one artist for each screen. A couple of the TVs are black and white too, so that adds an interesting twist to things. Inevitably, two screens will be showing the same film simultaneously, too. It\u2019s going to be quite a chaotic visual overload. <\/p>\n
The footfall past the screens every day will be enormous\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\nExactly. The gallery\u2019s location is a massive part of the decision to do the show – it’ll reach so many more people than a usual exhibition. It feels slightly festive, too \u2013 Christmas lights from a shop on the high street. We really wanted to do a group show \u2013 but our space is too tiny to cater for that, so this was a neat alternative.<\/p>\n
What inspired the concept?<\/strong><\/p>\nWe started thinking about old TV repair shops, and the idea that the space be transformed, aesthetically, into an old junk shop. There\u2019s a real one further down Bethnal Green Road that\u2019s really great. You wonder who’s having their analogue TV fixed anymore \u2013 but I love the mystery of it. We walk past it all the time \u2013 it\u2019s quite a cool, old fashioned, authentic-looking shop.
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\nHow does Les T\u00e9l\u00e9visions compare to the shows you\u2019ve run in the past?<\/strong><\/p>\nThe last one we did was really closed off \u2013 it was a full installation and the windows were blacked out. It was a totally different feel to the installations we\u2019d put on before \u2013 and it feels great that again we\u2019re trying something totally new. <\/p>\n
What information is offered about it, for the passer-by?<\/strong><\/p>\nWell our website is there, in vinyl lettering. After moving in, we soon realised that you can hear people\u2019s reactions on the street in here. I like the idea that you can kind of see us in the background of the piece, too – you know something\u2019s back there, but you don\u2019t know quite what. But for the opening show, the gallery will be open. Maybe we\u2019ll occasionally open it, though \u2013 keep it a bit loose. We heard a couple’s reaction the other day through the window \u2013 a guy and a girl, asking, \u201cis this real?\u201d <\/p>\n
Where did you source the footage from? Is it the work of people you know?<\/strong><\/p>\nYeah. We grouped together some artists for the project, and let them create their own footage for it based on the idea we proposed. One of them, a guy called Nick Pankhurst, pulled a piece of art through a film lens, which both projects and records the moving art [watch his piece, In the Deep Dark, below]. It\u2019s amazing. We not only facilitate and curate the works, but formulate it as part of a larger concept that is our own. So the reaction we\u2019ll get from it is interesting to us on a number of levels \u2013 people respond to the separate art works as well as the overall concept.<\/p>\n