TOWARDS A LEXICON OF PHENOMENA AND INFORMATION ASSOCIATION. AN INTRODUCTORY HOME APPARATUS (PLASTIC ONO BAND)

© The Artist

TOWARDS A LEXICON OF PHENOMENA AND INFORMATION ASSOCIATION. AN INTRODUCTORY HOME APPARATUS (PLASTIC ONO BAND) 2000

Mike Nelson (1967 – )

Details

Dimension
10 X .5 X 36 CM
Media
CASSETTE, BATTERY LAMP, WIRE, METAL
Accession number
P7334

Summary

1998 Nelson had a residency at Camden Arts Centre. A corridor led to the gallery in which the artist had assembled a seemingly disparate group of objects. On a notice board in the corridor hung a text: an introduction to ‘The School for Robinsons’, a book written by Jules Verne in which he parodies his own genre of ‘The Mysterious Island’. In the gallery Nelson had created a mysterious island: the shores littered with debris, mountains and valleys fashioned from ladders, vegetation from coiled wire and discarded inner tubing and peopled by strange puppets made out of tin and bits of string. Here are specimens taken from this island to be studied and evaluated, catalogued and categorised for a lexicon towards an understanding of this fictional place.

Multiplication, The British Council 2001

Glossary

  • Genre

    In a specialised sense this term refers to the portrayal of everyday life, and refers to painting; more broadly it means the subject types covered by an artist.

    The 17th Century French Academy decreed that there were five main genres an artist should study. These were History, Portrait, Genre, Landscape and Still Life. History was considered the most important as it portrayed Man in his most noblest endeavours and in his relationship with God; Still Life the lowest as it dealt with the moribund and innate.