TRONDHEIM ACADEMY OF FINE ART
Artist’s talk Trondheim kunstmuseum 3 pm 14 March 2016 Bispegata 7B, 7013 Trondheim at 3 pm.
Melanie Gilligan – The Common Sense
Technologies change us – our attitudes, our behaviour and our bodies. The Common Sense is a sci-fi mini-series by artist Melanie Gilligan which tells a story of technological change and economic imperatives as well as the political implications of both. The video work is an experimental narrative drama that revolves around a technology called ‘the Patch’, a device which makes it possible to experience the physical sensations and feelings of another person.
Presented in a TV series format on fifteen screens and installed mounted on a network of metal tubing, The Common Sense is a rich, intelligent and thought provoking musing on the effects of digital communication technologies and commercial exploitation on our collective interaction and individual psyches. Co-produced by Casco, de Appel and De Hallen in the Netherlands, The Common Sense is a non-linear and branching narrative that is being shown here for the first time in its entirety.
Melanie Gilligan works in a number of different media, including video, performance and installation. She holds a B A in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins in London and was a Fellow with the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Programme 2004-2005. Earlier film projects include Crisis in the Credit System (2008), commissioned by Artangel, as well as Self-Capital (2009) and Popular Unrest (2010) commissioned by the ICA and Chisenhale gallery respectively. In 2010, Gilligan was the recipient of a Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists. Recent exhibitions include “The Little Things Could Be Dearer” at MoMA PS1, New York, “Inhuman” at Fridericianum, Kassel and Nervous Systems at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. Melanie Gilligan lives and works in New York and is currently a PhD Candidate at The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm.
[image: Melanie Gilligan The Common Sense, stillbilde fra film, med tillatelse fra kunstneren og Galerie Max Mayer]