Like a bird …
A cormorant spreads its wings and swoops over watery vistas that most can only dream of right now in David Blandy’s new online video art commission, which makes the most of limited resources during lockdown. A vision of “solitude” and “calm”, as the voiceover has it, the bird becomes a source of “guidance” for those stuck “in between spaces”.
DIY …
Blandy gives this motivational, cod-spiritual material a canny twist. It is delivered as a YouTube “how to” tutorial as the artist initially takes us through the process of making the film, with animation lifted from Grand Theft Auto V and text sourced via a Google search. His narration is never more than matter-of-fact.
Mind the gap …
Of course, a YouTube tutorial on transcendence in crisis points up the huge gap between the dilemmas we face and the resources at our disposal. What is surprising about Blandy’s film is that the effect isn’t glaringly ironic.
Can you fix it? …
It does make you think about human resourcefulness – including the legions of helpful individuals sharing advice via YouTube on how to darn, fix a leak or, in this rarer case, make art, while feeling the pathos of its shortfall.
Tomorrow’s children …
The British artist has long mixed playful pop culture, such as computer games and manga, with shades of apocalypse. In his part-animated 2010 film Child of the Atom, he visited Hiroshima with his toddler, mulling over how he owes his very existence to the A-bomb. Without it, his grandfather would not have escaped a POW camp.
The end has no end …
Lately, Blandy has mused more broadly on cataclysms. Last year, his film installation The World After paired iPhone footage of beguiling nature amid Canvey Island’s defunct oil plant with a disaster narrative about a “sickness that ravaged the land”.
Looking up …
What really makes Blandy’s work stand out, though, is its humour and shades of optimism. “The cormorant is telling you hard times are actually gifts,” says the artist-narrator in this new video. You want to believe him.
How to Fly/How to Live is online at John Hansard Gallery to 31 May
