Collective was delighted to present a new exhibition by Satellites Programme participant Becky Šik. Central to this immersive installation was Mercury, a new experimental moving image work. The film interlaces a fragmented narrative using a mix of digital and 16mm footage with an evocative resonating soundtrack (composed with homemade magnetic instruments) and is presented with a sculptural screen and bench.
The film is structured through rhythm and association and uses an array of high production source material. Combining anatomical photographs and night-video of bats; two stories of a hobbyist magnet-fisher dredging below the surface of a canal and an amateur satellite tracker listening out into space; and scientific and philosophic reflections on the nature of communication.
Concepts of ‘echo’ are central to the film, used as both metaphor and audio effect; as locating device and editing strategy. The echoes in Mercury contribute to an immersive layering in the work; a series of calls and responses that build on the physics of echoes being produced through surface and reflection.
Mercury focused on that which sits just beyond human’s everyday perception, where invisible forces become tangible. Bats use echolocation to navigate; solar winds interfere with radio communications; whirring magnets excite and resonate bass strings; a Theremin transduces music from magnetic fields.
Find out more about Mercury in the information which accompanies the exhibition here and in Satellites Programme participant Alison Scott's essay An echo: Magnetic attitudes here.
Becky Šik is an artist based in Glasgow. whose practice moves between film, sculpture, sound , music and publishing. Recent projects include, Sharing a View, group exhibition, Luxun Academy of Fine Arts, Shenyang, China; Creative Lab residency with Sarah Forrest, CCA Glasgow; Next Top Model, group show, Govan Project Space; Fiducial Marker, solo exhibition, Project Rooms Glasgow; Human Machine Interface, group show at Hilbertraum Gallery, Berlin; A thought Becomes an Announcement
solo exhibition, QPRC, Glasgow. Becky is part of the ongoing collaborative project Made by ME.
Satellites Programme is Collective’s development programme for emergent practitioners based in Scotland. Satellites aims to support diverse practitioners to produce a new commission and a critical development programme of critical of retreats, workshops, studio visits and group discussions, public exhibitions, events and publishing. Practitioners are selected from an open submission by a new panel each year. The 2020 participants are Alison Scott, Kirsty Hendry, Sulaïman Majali, Holly McLean and Becky Šik.
