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“
For vertigo and sonic disorientation … press option D”
Once upon a time, in the high days of technological rhythms and repetitive
beats, Viz comic was pretty funny. There were handmade ads for Newcastle pubs,
and phone
sex adverts were still a long way off. Among the exploding trousers and unfeasibly
shaped body parts, there lurked “ Captain Captured- the Man Who’s
Constantly Caught.”
Our hero was a square-jawed secret agent, who somehow could never quite escape
the traps set by an unseen adversary. You know the sort of thing: “biting
through the bonds holding him into the chair attached to the conveyor belt leading
into the industrial grinder, our hero leapt free at the last moment only to be
confronted by a swarm of radio controlled killer bees which he managed to divert
by a burst of static from his wristwatch transmitter. Breaking through the door,
he instantly fell into…”
There was no end to the narrative. The attempt to escape was eternal. The end
was inevitable, but also infinitely delayed.
Discovering Dan Norton’s work is very like that. Instead of an external
motivator, you the viewer provide the infernal impulse. You, the viewer turned
player, are compelled by your curiosity to see what goes on when the press of
the button doesn’t quite make sense any more. You’re going somewhere,
the clues tell you there’s a narrative at hand, and occasionally there’s
a tantalising sense of a perspective before the floor slides away. But after
all, you pressed the button. And then you kept pressing it. Surely that must
mean you’re in control?
Pressing buttons was once the special privilege of international Mr Bigs and
supervillains. Alternatively, as in “The Day the Earth Caught Fire,” it
was the crucial point at which the world would catch its breath and know its
fate. As the world waits, the printshops of the newspapers have their two headlines
ready; WORLD SAVED or WORLD DOOMED.
Buttons have become a great disappointment since then.
Pushing buttons and clicking mice take us through a world of database gathering,
a tailored world designed to form a soothing cocoon of mass-produced individualism.
Pushing buttons no longer leads to redemption or damnation, at least not in
the insulated western economies. In a time where pushing a button leads to a
list of options, (and where “your
call is valuable to us”), Dan’s work can be seen as a late baroque
flowering of the “You push the button- we do the rest” era. It
combines the apparent eagerness to please of Eastman Kodak’s early advertising
with the veiled malevolence of Laurel and Hardy (“Now look what you made
me do!”) Initiating a Campaign for Real Play, this work affirms that
the Ludic is infinitely more than the ludicrous.
Art’s relation to comedy is often uneasy; few artists seem willing to risk
being seen as not serious enough. However, when artists take risks with absurdity-
such as Nauman’s clown pieces or Becket’s sly dry slapstick- there’s
a good chance of reaching a sense of the void under the mask.
There can also be agreeable terror there, too. Recent works featuring the words
of Death from Bergman’s “Seventh Seal” remind us of the skull
beneath the screen.
How many mouseclicks make a journey?
Listen. ~ Time passes.>>>>