Tom Varley developed a new film work entitled Violence. Silence. during New Work Scorland Programme, which continues his exploration into the relationship between abstraction and language. Tom is influenced by constrained writing techniques, and the film he created playfully explored the associative and poetic possibilities of language. The work also emphasised the fact that linguistic meaning amounts to an evolving consensus over the significance of essentially meaningless bits of information - abstract sounds and signs.

The structure of Violence. Silence. is based on audio recordings of medical examinations with patients suffering from receptive aphasia; a neurological impairment characterised by superficially fluent, grammatical speech but with an inability to use or understand more than the most basic nouns and verbs. The film's title refers to the 1981 work Violins, Violence, Silence by American artist Bruce Nauman.

Download the exhibition information here

Read the New Work Scotland 2013 publication here

New Work Scotland Programme was an initiative launched by Collective in 2000. Through an open call, New Work Scotland Programme identified and supported some of the most promising new practitioners working in Scotland - providing them with the opportunity to create new work and bring it to the attention of a wider public. The 2013 participants were Frances Stacey, Calvin Laing, James Bell, Conor Kelly, Shona Macnaughton, Tom Varley and Rachel Maclean.