3:39 minutes
3-Legged is an early video work by John Wood and Paul Harrison in which they appear with their legs tied together (as one would do in a three-legged race). Wood and Harrison stand together in a narrow alcove built into their studio, dressed similarly in grey long sleeve shirts and jeans. Facing a tennis ball machine that is almost completely out of view, with only the barrel of the machine protruding from the bottom of the frame, they hobble back and forth across the alcove attempting to avoid the tennis balls launching toward them, with varying degrees of success. Framed as a pseudo-scientific experiment, the work is a humorous commentary on variability, failure, and the nature of artistic collaboration and cooperation.
John Wood and Paul Harrison have been working collaboratively since 1993, producing single screen and installation-based video works. Their work investigates the relationship between the human figure and architecture, developed through short form video with particular emphasis on actions being formulated and resolved within a given duration. Their artistic practice spans the use of the frame, minimal aesthetics, associations of everyday objects and low-tech visual tricks, the making of micro-trivial actions – whose results are invariably between obvious failure and random success.
One of John Wood and Paul Harrison’s earliest works, Device features Harrison performing a series of actions, assisted by the titular ‘devices’, that use physics to force his body into unusual and uncomfortable positions...
Artists' Postcards: A Compendium, By Jeremy Cooper | The Independent | The Independent Of interest to students of art and deltiologists (collectors of postcards) alike, Jeremy Cooper's extensively illustrated book provides the first critical study of the place of the humble postcard in the history of art...
Weekly Southeast Asia Radar: Vietnam's post-war writers; Burmese voices in book | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Radar BACC October 8, 2020 ArtsEquator’s Southeast Asia Radar features articles and posts about arts and culture in Southeast Asia, drawn from local and regional websites and publications – aggregated content from outside sources, so we are exposed to a multitude of voices in the region...
Dutch Emerging: Ruben Janssen X GRA Fashion Bachelor 2023 – A Shaded View on Fashion From the back to the middle and around again — Ria’s wedding dress, Alan’s patterns and John’s model: ‘My project is an investigation into evolution, explored through prisms of biology, computation and a poetic personal narrative, shifting between timescales on an evolutionary timeline...
One of John Wood and Paul Harrison’s earliest works, Device features Harrison performing a series of actions, assisted by the titular ‘devices’, that use physics to force his body into unusual and uncomfortable positions...
In establishing a deliberate distance between viewer and subject, Lassry raises questions about representation itself and how all portraits are, in effect, fully constructed objects that only gain meaning once we ascribe them with our own personal associations and emotions...
In the seminal video Workout , Kanis looks at the phenomenon of exercise in public space—specifically aerobics exercises in parks around Moscow today—as a broader lens for thinking about generational change...