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Associate Studio Programme 4 : Patrick Goddard

For our second studio visit at the Highline Building, in January 2018, we were glad to host Patrick Goddard. The visit began with Patrick addressing some themes from his work which he had asked to flag out in advance as being of particular interest to us. He began by showing us examples from his solo exhibition at Matt’s Gallery, ‘Revolver II Part 3′ from 2014 beginning with the video, ‘Free Radicals’. We discussed the way he had managed to transform the self-critical voice he encounters in his practice, to a positive and fruitful element of the work. It appears as the second voice in Free Radicals and is even more present in the performance, ‘No Ironic Tip of the Hat To Class-Consciousness Can Save Us Now!’, in which the two voices engage more directly in a heated dialogue representing polar understandings. The dialogue evokes an element of humor and self-awareness as well as revealing to the audience the internal debates in Patrick’s practice. In the video, ‘Greater Fool Theory’, in which the second voice is embodied by a corporate businessman, raised a discussion about the questioning of self-reflexivity in politics and the elements of scripting and staging present in the video. We also discussed ‘Operation Paperclip’, a black comedy in graphic novel form as an example of dealing with identity politics, free will and anacho-individualism through a different format, whilst still utilising the two voices strategy mentioned previously. The session culminated with two members of the Associate Programme sharing their own work in relation to themes that had been discussed earlier. Tuli showed documentation from her two latest performances one in response to the political and humorous elements of Patrick’s work, and the other, the fascination with creation in urban environments. Phil then showed a video piece responding to the sci-fi and political theory and conspiracy aspects which had been previously brought up in the session. Tuli Litvak

Notes have been disabled.