Issue date: 15 May 2008
Media, Cultural Studies and Journalism students from the University of the West of England (UWE, Bristol) will be showcasing their work at the Sideways Looks 2008 exhibition at Paintworks in Bristol from Saturday 17 to Monday 19 May from 10:30 to 18:00.
Web based games, innovative approaches to photography, video documentary and print journalism are all featured in the exhibition. The students exhibiting their work have just completed a BA in Media and Cultural Studies, in the School of Creative Arts at UWE.
Tutor Seth Giddings, says, “The students' work demonstrates their distinctive critical and creative approaches to media theory and practice. The degree offers students the chance to acquire an understanding of the complex and dynamic culture we live in, and the role of the media within it. The student work shown here is the culmination of three years of learning about media and culture – and producing it too”.
Jasmine Shalkoie, a photo media student, has created an interactive puzzle called 'Self Assemble' in which aspects of the body such as scars, moles and bodily imperfections can be put together to form an identity. The exhibition visitor can assemble the 8 cubes (each with six photographs) and take a Polaroid image of the identity they have created. Jasmine says her work is a light-hearted critique of our contemporary obsession with identity creation and manipulation.
Another student whose work is interactive and also combines a range of media is Jessie Bowie-Sell. Her project, 'Street Cleaner', reworks the popular first-person shooter videogame as a thought-provoking interactive installation. The player uses a lightgun to navigate through Bristol streets and to 'gun down' anonymous enemies. Seth Giddings says, “This innovative piece is based on interactive video, not computer graphics, and wittily explores questions of simulated space, identification and gendered representation in interactive media.”
The exhibition will also screen video documentaries, including a piece by Gwen Williams whose short film 'Words Can Never Describe It' is composed from interviews with rape victims who express their feelings and their experiences of social responses to rape.
Gwen explains, “The film was inspired by the fact that most people who experience rape do not report it and out of the 15 per cent that do report 75 per cent drop out at the police stage. The film explores some of the reasons, given by survivors, as to why they left the case at the police stage and did not pursue it further. I wanted the film to give survivors, whose voices are so often ignored or silenced, a voice and therefore some sort of justice.”
The show takes place at Paintworks, Bath Road (A4), Arnos Vale. The exhibition is open to the public from Saturday 17 to Monday 19 May, 10:30 to 18:00.
-ENDS-
Editor's notes
The private view for the show is on Friday 16 May.
For further details see:
Sideways
Share
Share