Humiliation I.Q.
a new painting exhibition by Michael Morley

Humilitation I.Q is an exhibition of paintings that explore the relationship between memory and cognition. Michael Morley asks 'How can memory and cognition be manipulated by painting?'Humiliation I.Q.
a new painting exhibition by Michael Morley

Humilitation I.Q is an exhibition of paintings that explore the relationship between memory and cognition. Michael Morley asks 'How can memory and cognition be manipulated by painting?'

Dunedin based artist Michael Morley will open his exhibition of paintings entitled Humiliation I.Q to the public on Tuesday 7th June 5.30pm at the Physics Room contemporary art project space, 209 Tuam Street, Christchurch. The show will run from the 8th of June to the 3rd July. Morley will give a floortalk at 3pm on Wednesday 8th of June at the gallery.

The 12" vinyl record and turntable are the subject for the series of paintings. Morley states that, 'the paintings are an attempt at examining the gap that exists between the knowledge (or not) of recorded material held by the viewer. Each painting is titled after a particular album released as a 12" vinyl record, thus identifying something to the viewer that they will either recognise or not'.

Each painted record is positioned on a record player with the tone arm extended across the disc to imply playing. 'This investigates how sound is a peculiar abstract phenomena, like ghosts or apparitions, except that we cannot generally see sound, except for synasthetes. We do however possess the ability to hear or feel sound because of the physics of sound' Morley says.

Morleys second group of paintings are of buildings. These explore the absence of sound. The buildings are all unidentified buildings but are sourced from images Morley recorded over the last ten years from visits to large cities, mostly New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The buildings are rendered as mute objects, devoid of their general relationship to the city and humans.

Sampler Series
Iain Cheesman

Re-used chrome car lettering adorns a carpet entry mat - demanding to be stepped over, not upon. You are entering Iain Cheesman's, An Automatic Welcome, The Physics Room's 4th instalment in the Sampler series. An Automatic Welcome is a multimedia installation comprised of sculptural objects which interplay with schoolboy electronics and pockets of video.

An Automatic Welcome follows Cheesman's successful exhibition, Contact at the Blue Oyster Gallery in Dunedin. An Automatic Welcome will be on exhibition at the Physics Room with Michael Morley's Humiliation IQ from the 8th June to the 3rd July.

'It seems today more than ever, that the GUN is more prolific than the WORD.' writes Cheesman. 'Media affects the environment for us, it is clever with its associated visual devices, the image is presented as a mightier force than the word, the image is truth (unless it's a proven fake), and so what are we confronted with? Visual truths of war and violence, the good and the bad, the righteous and the wrong, a photo or film of a gun or a tank or a missile is wrapped as an unjust cause or a justified reaction'.

Within the gallery with its controlled light, our irises trace the glow of the LED's (light emitting diodes) embedded within the artist's objects. In the altering light we make out these objects - briefcases, a table, a dog, shoe brushes - at closer inspection, words appear. A table supports a chameleon structure that is part x-ray booth, part "Noah's arc" floating architecture.

One wall supports a cut-out carpet handgun, its LED's spelling the tongue-in-cheek phrase, 'A Little Too Loaded'. Cheesman's LED text poses questions relating to the existing plethora of media word and image; 'Does the text overpower, or enhance the images? Do the accompanying images detract from the fragmented and sensationalist information we are constantly fed?' Or, in this predicament do we become 'inert participants who are constantly being fooled' (Iain Cheesman).

Both exhibition run June 8th - July 3rd, with an opening preview on Tuesday June 7th
Gallery Hours: 10am - 5pm Tues - Friday; 10am - 3pm Saturday

For more information please contact: Zoë Roland (03) 379 5583 / zoe@physicsroom.org.nz