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Charlotte Prodger, "Percussion Biface 1-13", Installation View at Studio Voltaire, London, 2012
Courtesy of the artist; and Kendall Koppe, Glasgow

MEET
Glasgow-based artist Charlotte Prodger

March 27 2013
6:01 PM

Charlotte Prodger’s work uses the nexus of language and technology to create narratives – using codes, motifs and cross-associations – that explore the shifting relationship between information and meaning. Her work comprises a combination of 16mm film, video, spoken word and writing, weaving language and imagery. The legacy of Structuralist film and queer subjectivity is apparent. Adopting characteristics from the two, she presents footage and text ripped from the Internet alongside spoken-word narratives that invite a consideration of the imagery. Prodger – currently artist-in-residence at Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge – uses footage predominantly sourced from YouTube and on-line forums; the recited words are personal thoughts and anecdotes that include email correspondence and dialogue. Through a process of selection and editing, Prodger navigates and remixes this vortex of endless content, particularly private and personal experiences we are actively encouraged to engage with and add to. The work Percussion Biface 1-13 juxtaposes two unrelated acts: a video by an anonymous YouTube user who documents acts of adoration and destruction to his collection of trainers, on this occasion using a rock as a destructive tool. Simultaneously, she describes her experience of watching a YouTube video showing a spearhead being formed from a piece of volcanic rock. Percussion Biface 1-13 has recently appeared in the group exhibition “Frozen Lakes” at Artists Space, New York. Prodger will have a solo exhibition at Inverleith House, Edinburgh in 2015. (Louise Briggs)