Louise Mackenzie: transformation content

Louise Mackenzie, Lament, Dust, cotton bed sheet (2m x 2.35m)

7^th March – 11^th April 2014

Preview: 6^th March 2014, 18.00 - 20.00

Live performance of sound work: 4th March, 19.00, Ryton Methodist Church, Gateshead

Radio Broadcast: Daily at 12.30 on basic.fm and within the gallery space

Artist’s Talk and Discussion Evening: 13^th March, 19.00 - 21.00

The Holy Biscuit is proud to present transformation content, a project and exhibition by contemporary interdisciplinary artist, Louise Mackenzie. In her first solo exhibition since graduating from Newcastle University in 2013, Mackenzie takes fragments of a 104 year old organ, once the beating heart of a former Methodist church in Gateshead and through sound, social media and sculpture redefines the  energy of a community within a contemporary context.

Mackenzie explores the relationship between human social behaviour and the scientific construct of entropy (the term coined by German physicist Rudolf Clausius, as a way to define the define the transformation content of a body).  Taking the concept of community as a social group built around common beliefs, shared memories, songs and stories, Mackenzie considers how is this manifested in contemporary society.

The composition, Entropy is a collaboration with musicians from Newcastle University, involving the creation of a score based on a system devised by the artist.  The composition will be recorded in Gateshead, broadcast on basic.fm and played live into the gallery throughout the exhibition. The gallery will also be hosting a series of workshops with  the former church congregation and local schools in East Newcastle and Gateshead, where adults and children will contribute to a social media site as an ongoing element of the work.

Louise Mackenzie, Virtue and Faith, Still from social media website project (dimensions variable)

There will be an artist’s talk and discussion evening. This will take place on Thursday 13^th March, 19.00-21.00 and will feature contributions from Durham and Newcastle Universities including Professor Robert Song (Durham University – Theology and Ethics), Dr John Lazarus (Newcastle University – Evolutionary Biology), Dr Tim Hutchings (St John’s College, Durham – Sociology of Religion) and Alexia Mellor, MFA (Tufts University, USA - Fine Art).

Exploring what it means to be human, Louise Mackenzie's work crosses disciplinary boundaries in an attempt to understand why it is that we are compelled to make, discover and progress, rather than simply to exist. Often working collaboratively, Mackenzie generates opportunities for dialogue between art and science. With an experimental, research-based practice, she explores human evolution, past, present and future: from the origin of the species, through social and cultural evolution in the present, to genetic manipulation, the post-human and the future unknown.

Winner of the New Graduate Award at Synthesis, Manchester Science Festival (October, 2013), Mackenzie’s recent exhibitions include Arthouses, Whitley Bay Film Festival; Symbiosis, The Late Shows, Newcastle and Embassy Tea Gallery, London.

transformation content is generously supported by Arts Council England, Durham University, Newcastle University, The Methodist Church of Great Britain and basic.fm.