In the series HMKV Video of the Month, HMKV presents current video works by international artists for the duration of one month each – selected by Inke Arns.
Wilf Speller: BlkBx.mov
HMKV Video of the Month
On view 1 – 31 December 2016
Black Box, noun: A device which performs intricate functions but whose internal mechanism may not readily be inspected or understood. Formally borrowing from internet aesthetics ranging from YouTube conspiracy videos to instructional desktop demonstrations this piece uses new imaging perspectives to explore the notion of the Black Box as gesture of power and ideology, gestures founded in faith and illusion.
The Black Box has sublimity beyond visuality; by definition it is non-visual, a prosaic non-object, yet it has greatness beyond all possibility of calculation, meaning, imagination and imitation; a vertiginous construct; a hall of mirrors. This is the paradox but also the power of the Black Box. (Wilf Speller)
Wilf Speller, *1991 in London, lives and works in London. Education: 2014 University of Westminster, London. Group shows (selection): 5th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, 2016; 7th Cairo Video Festival, Medrar Centre for Contemporary Art, Cairo, 2015; Fresh Faced & Wild Eyed, The Photographer’s Gallery, London, 2015; On Transience, Ambika P3, London, 2014; On Borrowed Time(s), Iniva, London, 2014.