The Tunnel

The Tunnel are a diverse collective of artists, musicians, filmmakers, thinkers and chancers based in London. Every few months, we host themed events in and around the city to explore the role of the artist in this increasingly demented world.

As a member of The Tunnel I have taken part in a number of events/ exhibits, the themes based on texts allow a level of interpretation and experimentation that give freedom to all artists showing.

Exhibits so far have included (oldest first):

“Observations Of a Dog” Safehouse Peckham London 20th July 2019

“Observations Of a Dog” inspired by the writing of Franz Kafka ‘Investigations of a Dog’ A short story written in 1922 published posthumously in 1931. Tales from the perspective of a dog and its enquiries into culture. I was interested in our spectacle of consumption across social media and the false views and perceptions.

The text on this image was handwritten as a stream of consciousness and became part of the image background. Always there crossing through the corpse of the dog/fox its brief life captured as an original cyanotype and then used as a negative for contacting printing in the form of a Lumen print. This was subsequently treated with Chromoskedasik chemicals. Each image unique the final chosen images were almost mirrored in finish, reinforcing the reflection of the self and the culture of such with reference to the likes of Instagram and the perceptions of the self on social media.

Examples

Heart Of Darkness Hundred Years Gallery London 30th November 2019

“I Hate, Detest & Can’t Bare a Lie…. There is a Taint of Death in Lies”

Heart of Darkness The 19th Show from The Tunnel and the second I am happy to take part in. Inspired by the novella(1899) of the same name by Joseph Conrad. A narration about a voyage up the Congo river from the Thames and the subsequent obsession with the ivory trader Kurtz, the language at times hard to stomach and yet at others observant and beautiful. The references are also taken from the film, “Apocalypse Now” directed by Coppola 1979 and starring Brando.

The pieces for this were based both on the writing and the film, taking an experimental approach to the creation of the images using a combination of projection and Cliché Verre to expose an image which was then created in a visceral fashion during development, the use of the chemicals splashed across the surface to reiterate the violence of the central image as compared to the serenity of the surrounding voyage images of the land.

Carnival at The End of Time” Hundred Years Gallery London 13th August 2020

Cover 19 meant this was held under restricted conditions and closed to the public a live stream ensued!

“Carnival at the End of Time” Well the title speaks for itself and reflected the mood of the moment!

The series of images below used the chromoskedasik process, the image is one of many made as part of a larger project called, ‘Ness’ but I used this particular one as it had the feel of the causeway near what is known as ‘Deadmans Island’ A strip of land near the mouth of the River Medway and used to bury the remains of the those from the prison ships and those that died of yellow fever amongst other things. As a child growing up near this the stories would be told to fill you with fear in order to put you off from getting over to the land, a hazard filled venture. Today I found it relevant with our current climate and also many of the bones are now visible and washing up and out of their earthly confines. The image with the figure may well be heading to a carnival at the end of time…

“A History of Decay” Hundred Years Gallery London 10th September 2020

Finally this long planned show gets to be exhibited!

Cover 19 meant this was held under restricted conditions and closed to the public a live stream ensued!

“A History of Decay” is based around the writing of Emil Cioran, “A Short History of Decay” looks at twentieth century issues with a nihilistic wit, the observations on human kind make at times for heavy reading but the text is written so you can absorb it in small amounts.

It took me some time to get to grips with aspects of this text I found it impenetrable, though the dark humour occasionally came through enough for me to carry on. I decided to, instead of ploughing my way through the whole text to create a synopsis of each chapter in the form of a poem, a Haiku of sorts containing the chapter heading and the subheadings. The emphasis on certain parts of the titles would lead to a play on the words and a whole new interpretation of the brief elements of the novella.

I started with drawings made in charcoal and the vigorous laying down of these renderings became something which lured me in. I was looking at the darkness and the desperation in the chosen words and related to the feeling I got when thinking about Rodin’s, ‘Gates of Hell’ the writhing tormented figures and the fall of man. I chose to do Cyanotypes for this exhibit and the original drawings would then become negatives. The cyanotypes would then be overprinted with the text in such a way that you really had to look at the prints in order to read them. I am hoping the interaction between image and text is a dialogue that can be understood as a collection of the six chapters.

I plan to make these selections a limited collection, contained within a folio, each unique but part of a series.

Performers Noel Grassy Macken and Mai Nguyen Tri