Lucy Gunning
Xylo~phone
4 November – 1 December 2022
MattFlix presents Xylo~phone (2022) by Lucy Gunning.
This is convergence between a table and a camera. A phone camera and a table I have known all my life. I gave myself this task to see if I could make a film – to think about what this object is/has been. It was important that the top was shot in one take. The nature and length of it is a slow watch, reminiscent of a pre-digital time and yet made on and for a device where it’s possible to intervene, scroll back and forth. Making work for an online platform means you relinquish control of how a video is seen but placing the phone or device on a surface is a suggested way to view it.
The title is oblique: Xylo meaning wood in Greek, and phone meaning sound / voice, the tilde ~ symbol in between means approximation. It’s literal and nonsense, in a way that makes sense to me. Similarly, rather than a table this is a fulcrum of wood marks time stains light varnish screws glue gaps space. Rendered to pixels and digital noise. This particular table was probably made in the 1950’s - you couldn’t film a table with a phone then. The sound is incidental, ambient, reflecting presence behind the camera.
- LG, November 2022.
Duration: 24’ 58”
Shot on an iPhone SE.
This film includes incidental and ambient sound.
Commissioned by Matt’s Gallery for MattFlix.
Artist profile
Related exhibitions at Matt’s Gallery
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Anne Bean, Angus Braithwaite, Nina Davies, Benedict Drew, Lucy Gunning, Lawrence Lek, Zein Majali, Hardeep Pandhal, Paul Tarragó, Carolyn Thompson, Alison Turnbull and Joseph Walsh
MattFlix 36-47
1 – 3 September 2023
Nine Elms, Etc Space
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Lucy Gunning
Esc
21 April – 13 June 2004
Copperfield Road
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Lucy Gunning
(Untitled) Furniture
10 – 14 February 1999
Copperfield Road
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Lucy Gunning
Malcolm, Lloyd, Angela, Norman, Jane
7 February – 16 March 1997
Copperfield Road