Charlotte Prodger (born Bournemouth; 1974) studied at Goldsmiths College (now Goldsmiths, University of London) and The Glasgow School of Art.  Prodger explores the shifting representations of self that arise through meetings of language and technology and her works often combine video taken from YouTube with spoken text taken from internet forums and personal emails. The equipment used to play audio and video content is a vital part of Prodger’s work and she is interested in its sculptural properties, design history and associated subcultures. For each new project she reworks previous themes, images and technical paraphernalia to create a distinct visual language.

Max the Bull Terrier Trancing shows YouTube footage of bull terriers ‘trancing’: a state that they enter into when their back is lightly stroked, for example by leaves around pot plants. In this work the vertical form of the custom made Hantarex monitor and stand become anthropomorphic in height and Prodger has previously installed the work with spoken word pieces underlining the human parallels: ‘Do you ever get this thing, I get it sometimes when I’m doing a task that involves systems and logging… It’s a sudden, very brief flash of a place from my past – not places of significance. Just a particular part of pavement on the way to school or a point on some route I’ve forgotten about. It’s not nostalgic and it’s not emotional. It’s just like co-ordinates being triggered and fired off and then it disappears again.’[1]

 

[1]AAB,  “Charlotte Prodger” ...ment: 06 , 2015, http://journalment.org/article/aab

Glossary

  • Design

    The arrangement of elements or details in an artefact or a work of art.

  • Video

    Images recorded on videotape or on optical disc to be viewed on television screens, or projected onto screens. The medium through which these images are recorded and displayed.