The work questions human values.

The installation opens on a facing wall with a 2 metre high drawing of a ‘Mercury/Hermes’ like figure with the head silhouetted against a black nimbus inscribed with the word ‘Saboteur’. This feel/good messenger is a bearer of uncertain tidings. The image constructed in the first instance from torn pieces of paper has a feel for ephemera . The head has been stripped of its’ surface flesh revealing the skull and subcutaneous tissue. Though angelical in poise the gritty head is in sharp contrast to the soft body parts and the strategically placed ‘temple of enlightenment’ in the genital area, questions the nature and direction of this enlightenment. The benign character of the messenger is further bought into disrepute by the juxtaposition of the now familiar photo of a tortured prisoner from the Iraq prison Abu Ghraib, to the left of the larger figure. Though lacking in stature the small upside down photo is a visual and thematic irritant to the whole presentation signifying not only torture but denial, devious political practice and religious bigotry.

On the reverse of the facing wall, which acts as a pause to a consequent change of theme, are paper prints of two chairs facing each other. One has a tree branch lashed to it by a broad bandage with what appears to be blood oozing through the gauze. The facing chair has it’s seat covered by a pile of bones. Like the Abu Graib prisoner this tableau aims. and is there, to act as a further irritant within the field of reference. They carry their own agenda.

Proceeding, other items of the installation space themselves out over the next 8 metres. They are four blocks of hardwood each with a standing stick of bamboo with a further length of steel rod having a uniform height of 1.6 metres. These four refer to the domestic of human relations caught up and driven by the ‘other’ represented by the ‘Saboteur’. They are in order: A blood soaked bandage which brings to mind life cycle and procreation, a wounding and suffering: A small inscription which reads ‘The mouth which is transformed into a language of itself to the bite of rage’ a quote from the South American artist Lygia Clark, refers to a sense of helplessness which most humans experience when confronted with global disasters both human and natural outside of their experience and beyond their control: A hank of human hair which introduces to the mix an element of the personal and suggestion of intimacy: Finally a stiffened shroud-like chamois leather shape indicating the presence of dearth and closure.

Included in this grouping are two DVD players situated at ground level dispersed at two metre intervals. These are deliberately small images so as not to dominate proceedings and they refer to memory traces two and three. The first is of black and white images taken from the major work ‘Contact’ performed at the Auckland Art Gallery in 1974. The work was about the difficulty of establishing meaningful relationships between people and for obvious reasons has a place in the present work. The third memory relates to the work ‘News’ last performed at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth in 2006. It shows a large manned video camera in the act of zeroing in on some newsworthy target (not shown). It is reminder of the constant scanning of our lives and events by the media.

Finally on the end wall there is a graphic and dramatic example of the media at work. This is a photo taken from the internet of a boy wearing an oxygen mask flanked by other medical equipment suggesting that he is on a life support system. He could be a Palestinian but this photo divorced from its context becomes generic and global and could be seen in these circumstances as wearing the signature of the ‘Saboteur’.

Next to this photo is a text on medical and pedagogical concepts taken from a book on cybernetics (the branch of science concerned with control systems in electronic and mechanical devices and the extent to which useful comparisons can be made between man-made and biological systems). It should be noted in the context of this work that the word ‘cybernetics’ is taken from the Greek meaning ‘steersman’. The text given here is a reminder of the complexity and density inherent in relationships in the real world and if the ‘Saboteur’ is not exactly the ‘steersman’ he certainly is a player.

[A PROGRAMME P, a PAIR of TESTS (T, T’)
(respectively an initial test system and a final
test T) and a COLLECTIVE K are called in the
same order: E-COLLECTIVE, if the EFFECT
E EXISTS respecting P, (T, T’) and K.]

Jim Allen