Image from “The Infinite Possibilities of the Impossible ” ©Spencer Hogg 2023
| Project Title | The Infinite Possibilities of the Impossible |
| Venue | The Whirled Cinema – Loughborough Junction – London – UK |
| Date | 04th November 2023 |
Artist Statement
Spencer is a multidisciplinary Artist with an established practice in Sculpture, Installation, Photography, Moving Image, Sound, and Performance.
As a global citizen who has resided outside of his country of origin for the last 25 years, Spencer’s practice explores the complexities of place, movement, and belonging. As someone that exists in a temporary and transient state, what does it mean to be in outer space within a place?
Spencer’s practice and the landscapes of his host nation coexist in a collaborative and symbiotic relationship. He immerses himself within ethereal and uninhabited spaces to spark his creative thought process. Spencer actively seeks out and absorbs the environment, materials, and cultural experiences of his host nation and mixes this up with the data and memory stored on the magnetic tapes of his mainframe brain. Spencer’s process culminates with his body, costume, and objects being juxtaposed against sublime and dystopian landscapes to produce outcomes of fantasy, mythology, futurism, and carnival.
The Project – The Infinite Possibilities of the Impossible
How can moving image, sound and performance reveal to an audience the absurdity of contemporary life and transport the viewer into a world of fantasy, mythology and futurism? What does it mean to be in outer space within a place, where nothing is real and nothing is unreal?
The Project is a series of performative short films and original sonic compositions that explore the philosophy of absurdism in collaboration with the sublime and dystopian landscapes of the United Arab Emirates. A series of minimal brutalist sculptures were crafted from concrete, found, and recycled materials and incorporated within the performances.
Through the temporal mediums of performance, sound, and moving image this project provides the viewer an insight into the philosophy of absurdism and the seminal literature of Albert Camus and Franz Kafka. “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide” (Camus,1942). The Project takes Camus’s philosophical question and asks the viewer to consider why we search for meaning in life. To ask the viewer if they accept that life is absurd. From this point of acceptance, can we then rebel against the absurd to live a full, exciting, free, and diverse life in the present? The element of the self is a key actuator to the process and outcome, enabling the exploration of personal complexities of absurdism, belonging, place, and movement.
On 4th November 2023 the Film was Screened at the Whirled Cinema in London . A Live performance “Outer Space in Place” was also performed by the Artist at the Film Screening.
The Film – Part 1
The Film – Part 2
The Film – Part 3
Film Screening / Live Performance – Whirled Cinema – London
Images of the Film Screening, Live Performance and Q&A at the Whirled Cinema ©Spencer Hogg 2023
Sculptures from the Project
Images of Sculptures created for the Project and incorporated within the Film ©Spencer Hogg 2023
Photography from the Project
Photography from “The Infinite Possibilities of the Impossible” ©Spencer Hogg 2023
Dissemination – Vinyl Records
10 No limited edition Vinyl Records with the Sonic Soundscapes from the Project ©Spencer Hogg 2023
Social Media / Website
Website https://www.spencerhogg.net/
Vimeo https://vimeo.com/user174883368
Sound Cloud https://soundcloud.com/spencerhogg
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/outerspaceinplace/
List of Collaborators
Beach Ready – Sonic Soundscapes on Shipwreck, Suicide or Absurdity and Metamorphosis – London – UK
The Whirled Cinema – Venue -Loughborough Junction – London – UK
Audio Geography – Lathe Cut Records – Connecticut – USA
Al Tayiba Blacksmiths and Golden Star Metal Galvanising- Musaffah – United Arab Emirates