Event overview
Tin Shed is pleased to announce that its next exhibition will feature recent work by the Scottish artist Callum Kellie. The gallery will be hosting the video game artwork Top 20 Arms for two weeks through April.
Top 20 Arms is software art computer game based on the 2009 SPIRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) figures for military expenditure. The viewer guides a fire made of jet fighters, tanks and AK47s around a desolate grey landscape reminiscent of military thermal imaging. As the viewer crosses this landscape, they encounter ghostly tanks that present the total and GDP of military expenditure for the top twenty nations in the world, in terms of military spending. Developed using a now obsolete PC game engine, the work uses the familiar language of computer war games to involve the viewer in a game with no apparent purpose or end, aside from ever-increasing expenditure.
The amount of money that governments around the world spend on weapons is a topic never far from the headlines. We need only look to the on-going debate over the replacement of Trident, which only last week David Cameron described as essential to maintaining Britain’s security. It is not uncommon, particularly at this time of massive cuts to the welfare budget, to see figures in the media illustrating alternative ways of spending the money that goes on arms. While this work makes no such comparison, it does encourage us to consider the vast sums nations devote to their armed forces and to what end.
Callum Kellie makes art because he sees things in life that fascinate him, that he can relate to and draw parallels with is own life. His work has a strong leaning towards documentary, often making use of photojournalistic styles and approaches. He uses these as way of exploring the themes he is concerned with, allowing the viewer a road into the work whilst remaining poetic at heart. Consisting of photographic and video elements placed within a sculptural and gallery context, he work speaks with a visual vernacular informed by the traditional use of these media in documentary film and photography.
Callum is a graduate from of Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen. He continues to live and work in the city, where he is currently working on a project about the vibrant local arts community.
http://www.tin-shed.org/callum-kellie/
http://www.callumkellie.co.uk
http://www.tin-shed.org/callum-kellie/
Dates & times
Date | Time | Add to calendar |
---|---|---|
22 Apr 2013 | 10:00am - 5:00pm | |
23 Apr 2013 | 10:00am - 5:00pm | |
24 Apr 2013 | 10:00am - 5:00pm | |
25 Apr 2013 | 10:00am - 5:00pm | |
26 Apr 2013 | 10:00am - 5:00pm |
Accessibility
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