Rotters

Rotters is a situation for four sculptures over 22 minutes, running continuously.

‘A kangaroo court in a store room, Rotters (2019) holds four sculptures in a looped dialogue. Two interrogators—Sparky the school locker, and Swall the watchtower—push the reticent Rotter the perspex box, for ‘FACTS’. Haunted by the looming presence of So-N-So and the pressure of uncomfortable memories, Rotters scene-of-the-crime is a collision between different forms of inquest.’

Rotters installation consists of 4 sculptures, synched lighting and speakers. Each sculpture is a character named in the script. Two of the characters Sparky (the steel school locker) and Swall (a watchtower) are interrogating a third, Rotter (a Perspex box) about the whereabouts of So-n-So (a sheet of safety glass). So-n-So is in fact in the room but this is never fully acknowledged by the other characters, though monologues memories in a streaming fashion. Rotter throughout remains mute. The sculptures are ‘animated’ by the structuring conceit of a motorized, synched light, which picks out the speaking or mentioned sculpture and the use of spatialized sound (at the points where the three speaking ‘characters’ are located). The lines for each speaking character are voice-acted.

With Kirsty Clark and Samson Dittrich.
Thanks to Jon Roome and Ghislaine Leung.