Tom Estes
performer
Formazione
B.A. (Hons) Fine Art, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
BTEC Video Production, City & Guilds, Lambeth College
Undergrad Certificate, Enterprise Management for the Creative Arts, London College of Communication
Undergraduate Certificate, English Local History (research techniques), Univ. of Oxford
Tematiche
Harnessing The Hive:
As an artist I am interested in the relationship between machines and humans. At the core of my work is an attention to digital platforms and new forms of interconnectivity. We are being completely enveloped by abstract systems and inundated with information that we are struggling to come to terms with. And while machines enable us to do things they also do things to us and do things at us. But whatever may be said about the internet one thing remains certain- as a primary means of global communication the internet is the resulting in a massive social transformation. And the internet favours private, unconditional, sovereign freedom over scientific, conditional and institutional freedom.
In my practice I create socially engaged work that is participatory or immersive in some way. Smirking one-liners are playful staged as an absurd yet enjoyable visual spectacle that is a light mix of TV and formulaic Sci- fi drama. The work is intended to be nuanced enough to simultaneously traverse some of the fundamental ideological fantasies that sustain our late capitalist society while still being very accessible and approachable to the general public. Much of my performance offers a parallel and contextual reading of such old time favourites such as 'Superman, The Road Runner, The Creature From The Black Lagoon the archetypal 'mad scientist' and the surrealism of television programmes such as The Twilight Zone.
Audience members are asked to interact with the performance by taking pictures on what I call a "communal camera". The pictures are then posted on social networking sites for another, wider on-line audience. This what I refer to as 'Harnessing The Hive' as the view of the central performance is mediated and digitally recorded through a machine. In this way, the photographs, become more than mere documentation and can be seen as central to the work. The audience, rather than being some kind of privleged witness becomes part of the performance while taking pictures. This role reversal invites the audience to re-examine easy assumptions, received opinion and current social and critical trends as well as pose tough questions about the ways in which we see and understand our world and culture.
At the core of this work is an attention to the flickering fading definition of our lives as dictated by film, television, the computer monitor and the rapid reply of instant messaging. I strive, not to break down these introverted, often self-imposed boundaries, but to look how data flow form the virtual realm impacts on the significance, symbolism and depth of real-world human senses. But in doing so, I have begun to generate unexpected questions about how art might be able to inscribe itself on the surface of reality- not to represent itself on the surface of reality- not to represent reality, not to duplicate it, but to replace it.
Tecniche
Performance/ Photographty
Bibliografia
am an artist and my work has been hung, played and performed in a few of the world's right places and a couple of deliciously wrong ones. I was born outside of Boston in the U.S.A and moved to Paris and lived there for a couple of years before settling in London as my base of operations.
My work has been shown nationally and internationally and I have regularly worked with collectives from the United Kingdom such as The Red Velvet Curtain Cult and Art Evict as well as The Biennial Project from Boston in the U.S.A.
I have shown work in major galleries and my work can also be found in permanent collections such as The Wellcome Collection, The Serpentine Gallery and Tate Modern.