Video stills from Notes I. Images courtesy of the artist.

Notes Part I, II & III is a three-screen installation of recent video works by British artist Charlie Tweed. This exhibition is Tweed's first major UK solo show in a public gallery and is also the first occasion when all three instalments of the 'Notes' series will be shown together in one space. The videos will be projected in a looping sequence projected across the cavernous interior of Gallery Two. Whilst masquerading as a fiction - a future dystopia sent to us in episodes by a post-human lifeforce - Notes Part I, II & III explores contemporary systems of control and the belief systems they represent.

Notes Part I (2008) - 08:00. 'We are the above'; 'Where we are now'; 'We must undo'. 

Across 2008-10, Charlie Tweed created a series of seven haunting and compelling short videos which form the basis of Notes Part I, II & III. These videos appear to be transmissions from shadowy collectives who are orchestrating change on mass scale. Their plans include a world wide flood ('We are the above'), and, more mysteriously still, a movement intent on capturing "all of the birds" in order to, "store them securely in places where they can operate freely" ('Where we are now'). The imperative for this apparently urgent yet nonsensical collective action is conveyed by computerised voiceovers. These voices do not bark out orders but instead outline their plans calmly and with authority,  accompanied by melancholic music. The voices always addressing 'us', the viewer, through the collective term 'we' - "we must undo"; "we are building a new space"; "we will leave no stone unturned" . The continual use of the plural is delberate, impling that 'we' the audience have the same desires as the anonymous collectives who speak to and for us. Even when the voice-over starts to break down, repeating, glitching and stumbling over words, the seriousness of intent of the speaker continues to override the irrationality of these narratives.

Tweed's tightly scripted, orchestrated voiceovers are accompanied by fast changing images which depict the world at the edge of an imminent unnamable crisis, one in which both the natural environment and civil society are at risk. In order to create these montages, the artist carefully collages together material from freely circulating digital sources - extracts from broadcast documentaries, Youtube clips, instructional videos and amateur news footage. They are then further distorted by adding effects, such as pixilation or analogue noise, which makes them hard to place in terms of a specific time or geographical location. Freed from their original context, these images are generically recognisable as the world around us, a mix of organic and manmade - mountains and the sea, powerstations and mobile homes. And yet, when accompanied by Tweed's narrative, formerly banal or even humorous images are suddenly cast in a sinister or apocalyptic light. Documentation of climbers practicing on indoor walls can now reinterpreted as members of an unknown cult 'the above' who are climibing hight in order to instigating a mass flood, whilst a man jumping against a tree in a 'You've Been Framed' style pratfall, suddenly appears intent on a desperate form of escape from an unknown threat.

As well as purely fictional propositions invented by Tweed, the scripts draw on existing plans to alter the environment, such as the phenomenon of 'rewilding' ('We must undo'), as well as outlandish historic aspirations to tunnel under the Adriatic sea ('Navstevnici'). The works also conjure up predicted scenarios in which we arrive at the moment of ultimate technological advancement ('Singularity'). The final transmission, ('Zappisale'), is partly guided from the instructions of a contemporary anarchist handbook 'The Coming Insurrection' by the Invisible Committee. It ends with broken down, overexposed abstract images, as if the video follows the logic of a narrative bent on destruption by destroying itself frame by frame.

The Notes series does not only set out to test the relative absurdity or plausibility of the such plans, however. By imitating their methods, the artist also seeks to question the degree to which we are willing to surrender control to the various authorities, legitimate or otherwise, who seek to speak on our behalf.

This exhibition is presented in association with Animate Projects and Artsway.  With thanks also to Curator Pavel Vancat and Galerie Klatovy Klenova, Czech Republic for commissioning Notes II. 

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