Audio Guide

[Welcome]
Hey! Welcome to the audio guide for ‘Blind at The Age of Four’. Would you like to come with me round the exhibition? Yeah? OK, take my hand and follow me. We’ll go around the ground floor first, followed by the staircase and the basement. On the floor you’ll find a pathway that will help us navigate the exhibition. It’s 5cm wide and made from shiny aluminium propeller plate. You can feel it through the soles of your feet and it sounds like this when you tap it with a cane. [tap] What else? Oh yeah!  Each of the artworks in the exhibition has been translated into words, and these descriptions will be read aloud as we go along. You can also find the descriptions written out on the exhibition website.  

[Ground Floor]

The ground floor. OK, It’s an oblong room, big, about 7 metres wide by 5 metres deep. If we stand with our backs to the entrance door, there are three floor-to-ceiling windows immediately to our right. And then about a metre from the door, in front of the windows, there is a rank of black metal railings topped by wide bannisters. The railings run around the edge of a large rectangle cut  into the bare concrete floor in front of the windows. It’s a hole about the same size as a tiny swimming pool or a medium size flowerbed. If we look over the bannister we can see the bottom of the black staircase and the grey basement floor about 8 metres below us. The basement is where the sound we can hear is coming from. More on that later. Back here on the ground floor, against the corner of the railings just to the right of the door, there’s a tripod with a little handycam on it pointing down into the hole and surveilling the basement. We’ll hear a description of what the camera is filming in just a moment. What else can we say about this room? The three walls are painted grey, on the right- and left-hand sides, and white on the wall in front of us. Above us there’s a single long fluorescent tube light, which is always on. On the right-hand grey wall there are the four paragraphs of the introductory text and credits written in black text. We can hear that read aloud after this bit. To the left of the intro text there’s a desk and chair where the person who welcomed us into the gallery sits. And hung on the white wall in front of us there’s a large rectangular artwork called Ulcy Rptresnse Het Flim. It’s kind of like a painting. Really really big. Much taller than I am. We’ll describe that in detail in just a sec. To the left of it there’s a small piece of yellowing paper stuck to a black metal column. It’s corners are dog-eared and very tatty. On the paper there’s a QR code to activate the Augmented Reality feature of Ulcy Rptresnse Het Flim, and below it there is the first of three poems by poet Ella Frears. You can hear this first one soon, and the other two poems are downstairs in the basement. The last thing to mention on the ground floor is the top of the staircase. It’s over on the far left hand side at the back, but I’ll tell us more about that after the introductory text and artwork descriptions!

[Introductory Text] - BLIND AT THE AGE OF FOUR | A SOLO SHOW BY JACK WARNE

Jack Warne invites us into the flickering moments of a world revealed. A journey where our perceptions of the virtual and the real are brought into question, our trust in digital technology is interrogated and our reliance on the visual expanded into the bodily. 

Inspired greatly by his archival collection of family video tapes, Warne’s new body of work is an opportunity to reflect on memory and childhood archetypes. Layering painting, print and newer technology to help disrupt our neural pathways, Warne reduces the image to its materiality, piecing these associated frames back into a digital painting that is neither signal nor noise. 

The show’s title ‘Blind at The Age of Four’ references in part the rare genetic eye condition Thiel-Behnke Corneal Dystrophy which Warne inherited from his late father, a condition that can plunge Warne into periods of complete darkness. In these moments Warne experiments with music to restore his calm. This exhibition follows his debut album of the same name released last month under the moniker GAUNT. Displaced soundscapes from this album are activated by interacting with the artworks.

This exhibition seeks to encourage a more palpable, multi-linguistic and inclusive engagement with the artworks. There is a tactile path on the floor that can be felt through shoes and tapped with a cane, and a co-created audio-guide devised with members of both the blind and sighted community. Newly commissioned poetic responses to Warne’s artwork have been written by poet Ella Frears. As the basement of the gallery is not accessible to wheelchair users, the artist has devised a parallel exhibition experience via a virtual artwork that can be accessed from the ground floor. Each painting is accompanied by a digital counterpart that can be accessed through a QR code printed onto facsimiles of letters from a son to his parents, which Warne found in an antiques shop. 

Throughout the show the virtual and actual are blurred; moving phones to map the paintings, the visitor’s gestures occupy and become part of the mercurial artworks as new virtual parts of Warne’s work come into focus. We are invited to interrogate the threshold of our own perception  and our memories, and to explore how technology and machines can aid as well as hinder our everyday reality. 

[Ulcy Rptresnse Het Flim] - 188cm x 150cm - Foam, Tile Adhesive, UV Print, Augmented Reality Filter, Aluminium

near the top. toward the left. a pale blur. it's exposed on something dark & noisy. a high-speed freeze frame. what is it? they must be flames. no? or streaking cirrus clouds? is it a faded nebula? a cataract whirl? but that’s a pillow. surely. in the centre. white. or a pale arm. blurred in motion. falling through flames or stardust. focus. look. there is something there. the surface is laced in binary rows. scalpel sharp. but what is it? we can't say for sure. not until the image moves, the frame stirs, warm fingers, gentle, sepia, they hold something, a right angle, an artefact, a piece of pale paper, it’s pushed toward us, flat against the glass, a message, silent, pressing, dear, dear dad, how-are-you, I-do-love-you, I want, we went, the zoo?

[Handycam] - digital video camera, tripod

the handycam is mounted on a tripod. it stands in front of railings on the ground floor pointing down into the basement. we’re looking at the image the camera is recording represented on its small LCD screen. what do we see? a full suit of armour standing in front of a rectangular artwork mounted on the basement wall. the armour gleams in the basement’s strip lighting. it has its back to us but we can see its pot helm head, its backplates, its greaves & sabaton shoes. what’s the armour made from? is it propeller plate? hard to say with this low-res video. the armour is engrossed by the artwork on the concrete wall. is the armour moving at all? no. it seems to be motionless. is there anyone even in there? but the artwork on the wall is definitely moving, it pulses, fast-paced, responding rhythmically it moves from side to side, up & down, dancing as light might to music or over a murky water’s surface, to the right of the suit of armour, what’s there?, there’s another moving artwork on the wall, it’s pace is more gentle, a purple cloud gyrating, floating over & onto itself in back & forth motions as if massaging the canvas.

[Staircase]

The staircase. A metal set of thirty steps divided in two flights. It’s probably made from steel but I haven’t checked that with anyone. The steps are grippy with propeller plate, like our pathway but these steps are matte black rather than brilliant and shiny. There are curved handrails on either side. It’s a sensitive set of stairs. We can play it like an instrument, clip it with our canes or tap it with our feet. And if we sing at a particular pitch, the whole thing rumbles like a spaceship. We should be careful when we start to go down the stairs because the first step is wider than the others. My advice is to find the handrails on either side then take the first step slowly. We descend sixteen steps to the landing and turn to the left. Immediately in front of us there is the second flight of stairs, which takes us down to the basement floor. On our left is the mezzanine, where the bathroom is located. This landing and the mezzanine are good vantage points for us to view the large rectangular artworks hung around the basement floor. We can see them spread out below us in the cavernous space, two on the walls at the foot of the staircase, one more to the right and two others further on. The sound we heard upstairs is a little louder down here. It’s coming from somewhere to our left, beneath the mezzanine. The basement beckons! Let’s go down!

[Basement]

OK, we’ve come down those sonorous steps to the very bottom of the exhibition space. The basement. Wow. It’s pretty big down here. Echoey. Echoey. I feel very small. The walls are grey and messy, kind of drippy. The floor’s grey too. It’s that material we’ve got in our bathroom at home. Hard, plasticky, a little bit sticky. There’s the metal propellor plate pathway stretching out in a line across the floor. It goes all the way around the basement space and it will help us find our way in a bit. OK. So we’re standing with our backs to the staircase. The soundscape we heard from up on the ground floor is now coming from somewhere to our left.  There’s an enormous black speaker hanging from the low ceiling beneath the mezzanine. It’s absolutely humongous. Super futuristic looking. What else? Immediately in front of us, mounted on the grey concrete wall, there are two big rectangular artworks. They’re a similar shape and size to the one upstairs. Remember? The one that’s a bit like a painting but it moves? The artwork on the left is called Teh Mowdea, and the artwork on the right is called Culy Psuhes Reh Pram. They’ll be described to us soon, don’t worry. OK, let’s move a bit. If we take hold of the right-hand staircase bannister and swivel 90 degrees around it to the right, we should find the metal pathway beneath our feet. We can sweep around with our canes to find it too. Follow the path forward a few steps until you find a corner. We’re now facing another one of those rectangular painting things. This one is called Culy nad Leimy. More on that soon. Turn to the right and let’s propel ourselves along the propellory path a few steps until we find another corner. Actually it’s more like a little chicane or zigzag. That means we’re near a grey concrete column, just on our right. It’s about 80 centimetres away from us. The corners of it are crumbly. We shouldn’t be afraid to sweep about a bit with our canes, by the way. As long as we keep them on the floor, we won’t damage anything. I mean. Well. Don’t go too wild. Stuck at head height, if you’re a grown up, on the grey concrete column there’s another bit of that old looking paper we saw upstairs. Printed on it are more QR codes to activate the rectangular artworks in the space, and there’s also the second poem by Ella. We’ll hear that soon. OK. With our feet on that zigzag bit, let’s go forward a few more paces on the path. In front of us now there are two more of the rectangular paintings on the wall. These are the final two in the exhibition. They’re called Lily Easrts ta Teh Lock and Nnnoa Thrgouh Teh Dowinw. You guessed it. We’ll hear those described shortly. Follow the path a few more steps until we find it turning sharply to the right. We’re now looking under the staircase. The ceiling is much lower here. As we go underneath, we’ll notice the sound change. In front of us and a little to the right there’s a black metal pillar. It’s got another of those yellowing old bits of paper on it. There are more QR codes to activate the rectangle artworks there and, yes! it’s the final poem. I can’t wait to hear that one. Let’s follow the path ahead. When we find another corner turning to the right, we’ve reached the very darkest bit of the basement space. It’s a solitary little corner where there are more bits of old yellow paper stuck to the wall. There aren’t any poems on these, just curious bits of child-like handwriting. I didn’t write on them, I swear! If we follow the path to the right the speaker should be straight in front of us. We can feel the path taking us toward it, then turning us to the right, then to the left and right again. We’re now standing in front of the staircase with the speaker behind us. We should be able to find the handrail to take us back upstairs. But don’t go just yet. Let’s listen to the artwork descriptions and the poems!

[Teh Mowdea] - 186cm x 150cm - Carpet, Tile Adhesive, UV Print, Augmented Reality Filter, Aluminium

the surface looks soft. it could be sponge. it’s patched in moon grey & bruise purple. one spot on the left is almost cream. is it nighttime or daytime? a kind of twilight maybe. can we agree on that? there’s a mirror-like sheen on the surface. the strip light falls on dents. craters etched in the sponge. we move in closer. those black lines. digits combing the surface. scoring the sponge. in combination they mark the image like dirty fingerprints. it’s hard to know where we should look. dappled forms. cloud cover. tree canopy. are those legs on the left hand-side? legs or breasts. funnels or cones. if they’re legs then the left one is bent. as if poised for motion. ready for animation. when it comes, the purples & creams pulse, the lines & patches vibrate, they become warmer, are they dancing or dying?, a staccato motion, don’t panic, quick time, curdle, thrombosis, agitated or windblown or wave rocked, nerve-wracked, thrumming.

[Culy Psuhes Reh Pram] - 188cm x 150cm - Carpet, Tile Adhesive, UV Print, Augmented Reality Filter, Aluminium

it’s as grey as the concrete wall behind it. a chalky kind of grey. it could be a satellite image but did we zoom in too far? is our signal strong? the clouds might be too dense for us to see anything. there are lines etched into the grey. graven marks on rockface. is it some kind of system? primitive or synthetic? in the bottom corners there might be mould. spreading upward on a polystyrene substrate. & then it flickers to life, plaster, powder, sugar or saccharine, sick or luxuriant, crushed velvet envelopes us in clouds of lavender, do we like it?, what does it mask?, those importunate lines, like white scored skin, like notes on celluloid.

[Culy nad Leimy] - 150cm x 188cm - Curtain, Foam, Tile Adhesive, UV Print, Augmented Reality Filter, Aluminium

we could call it darkness. but no. there’s something there. bottom right. a lightish form encroaching on the middle. no more than a smudge. pale pink like faded potpourri. is that damp we’re smelling? the background. a grandparent’s dimpled wallpaper. those cracks near the skirting board. are we cold or warm in here? hard to tell. coming or going? don’t know either. look. is that a shoulder there. near the pink smudge. & something turquoise? a sleeve is it? a light blue shirt? the pink could be skin. a small face in profile. a primate. a baby. if that’s a shoulder and that’s a baby’s head then the shadow is an eyesocket. but is it really there? it’s like we’re making it up. an adult with a baby. a nooked face. embrace or abandonment? the colours shift, what was darkness is now flat grey, the platinum surface of a lake, shapes stir, two figures emerge, as unstable as quicksilver, two girls are they?, swirling, dancing, waxing, waning, one face for a moment so distinct we might recognise it. 

[Lily Easrts ta Teh Lock] - 186cm x 150cm - Curtain, Foam, Tile Adhesive, Augmented Reality Filter, Aluminium

a red centre. is it a balloon? there could be two heads either side of it. a greenish kind of background. undergrowth? it’s all vague of course. even up close. corrugation streaks on the surface. it seems gilded in places. like someone’s hammered into it. how far away should we stand? if these are two figures then they seem to be life-size. really? can we read their faces? one could be sad. one could be happy. it is early evening. perhaps. a muffled conversation. where? in a mirror? ghosting. a slow shutter. hushed. & is that the old table cloth pixelating at the bottom while the surface breaks?, the figures disappear, no flesh, no balloon, but what might be a landscape speeding past, alternating squares, rectangles, compression, bits, pieces, no definition but we’re moving anyway, under bridges & out again, are those two hands on a steering wheel? are we driving? 

[Nnnoa Thrgouh Teh Dowinw] - 188cm x 150cm - Curtain, Foam, Tile Adhesive, UV Print, Augmented Reality Filter, Aluminium

five vertical strips structure the surface. they’re white. unevenly sized & roughly straight. they sit between five lines of mottled grey & blue. the colour of a leaking biro. or tire tracks in snow. a winter’s evening. are these strips of negative? a ribbed x-ray? move closer & we can smell the chemicals. the surface is scratched. scrawled here and there. the paint rucked up by a nail. & something has stained the white lines. or the wall is showing through. as if they were rollered on too dry. who did this work? are the strips masking a mural? or is it the other way round? there is a thick white bar at the bottom. it joins the white strips like a windowsill. or the floor of a balcony. is this a prison cell? are we outside or in? a kinetograph flickers to life, bright blues, powdering pinks, it could be a fairytale forest, or we’re dreaming, through the bars, the dappled green of trees, a garden?, & on the surface pale scars, looping, indelible.

[Credits]

Art by Jack Warne
Curated by Olga Romanova at D/ARTS and Sasha Galitzine & Joe Rizzo Naudi at Collective Agency
Executive Producers, Jim Martin and Grace Sheridan-Share at 3345 Arts International
Art printing by Omnicolour
AR by Mirage
Poetry by Ella Frears
Audio Sound System provided by d&b Audiotechnik
Public Art supported by DIABOLICAL part of BUILDHOLLYWOOD
Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England