Part 2: The Top and Bottom of it. Mechanism for a Future Reference grew directly from Part 1: By Appointment Only. Parts 1 & 2 were finally realised in the form of a limited hand stitched facsimile reproduction of a Matt’s Gallery whitebook. See below for a PDF version.

The

Top &

Bottom of It.

Mechanism for a Future Reference

is a new installation of site-specific work by David Osbaldeston. The work is made for, and built into the existing architecture of the Matt’s Gallery office, and includes screen prints, intaglio etchings, and sculpture assembled from a combination of new and existing material within the office and the context it serves.

Made for a working situation where daily life is an ecosystem of objects and ideas in constant rotation and transition, the installation is made up of connecting-parts. Active ingredients such as gaps, openings and closings, and a series of graphology reports from previous visitors, offer covert methods of engagement. Central to this and occupying the entire length of the office floor is a fixed railing system upon which effortlessly glides the Mechanism For Future Reference: a tall idiosyncratic wooden-built structure, designed as a moveable sculpture and operational machine.

Held in place by black solid rectangular ‘memory blocks’ the mechanism places the viewer at the behest of technology, enabling them to travel backwards and forwards in space and time. The viewer will have access to the arrangement of artworks displayed in cryptic sequence above and below eye level. (Top & Bottom.) Like some out-of-kilter reference to a future history stuck on repeat, Mechanism For Future Reference inhabits a space between utilitarian working furniture and art-object-as-abstract-machine that kaleidoscopically helps reveal time as a substance folding in and against itself.

In a bid to form a parallel universe somewhere between the physical and ephemeral, images are fashioned into objects and objects are formed into images. The works are presented in an unexpected alignment of physical things to produce new meanings that require the physical act of opening. To transcend the duration of the usual 4-6 week exhibition

The

Top &

Bottom of It.

Mechanism for a Future Reference

has no specified date of closure.

David's work takes the form of installation, posters, and drawings, which evolve out of a continuing engagement with cut-and-paste culture. His work often occurs in sequences, dealing with the appearance of things. Both transient and fixed identities are regular sites for enquiry where the 'familiar' is recycled and re-imagined into a strange image of itself only to unravel into a deceptive game of reiteration between the visual and linguistic. What comes out of this is both intentionally cryptic and puzzling. This happens through disrupting the qualities of chosen media, absurd methods of production, or comic miscommunication, originating new meanings from more than one authorial state.

Matt’s Gallery is generously supported by Arts Council England.

Parts 1 & 2 (whitebook)
Parts 1 & 2 were finally realised in the form of a limited hand stitched facsimile reproduction of the Matt’s Gallery whitebook series. Made in collaboration with Phil Baines. 2016.

24 pages, 200 x 240 mm, 24 black/white images, softcover. Printed on an office photocopier in a hand stitched edition determined by 50 metres of Coats Barbour 50gr linen chord. Published by the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London. 2016.

A PDF is available to view via the link below.