Alastair Crawford

Avon Calling

30 Jun — 11 Jul 1999

Delving into a semantic terrain, Alastair Crawford's installation Avon Calling uses dialogue and projected imagery to explore the place of film within the gallery. Using massive video back projections to create a cinematic 'corridor' in the gallery, Crawford's installation captures the viewer between two jumbled monologues snatched from the electronic impulses of the cellular network. From the screens on either side two competing voices and oversized faces quarrel for the viewer's attention, and indeed for the cinematic space in between them.

In this ambitious and arresting installation Crawford sets out to break down the traditional notions of cinematic narrative, and in the process reinvents the viewer as an active participant in the production of meaning.