one more kilometer

source: laughingsquid

In the performance piece “One more kilometre” by British art duo John Wood and Paul Harrison, a beautiful stream of flying paper is created using a belt sander and a giant stack of copy paper (video). The paper, if stacked end to end, would cover a distance of one kilometer (hence the name). “One more kilometre” was on display in March at Kulturhuset in Stockholm.
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source: vimeo

El dúo británico de video-artistas Wood y Harrison han desarrollado una obra hecha en videos monocanal, video-instalaciones con múltiples pantallas, grabados y dibujos, con una estrategia donde se juntan la investigación rigurosa e imágenes sorprendentes y encantadoras.
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source: galerieho

Ce duo constitué en 1993 comptent aujourd’hui parmi les artistes les plus représentatifs de l’art vidéo britannique. Les performances filmées de Wood et Harrison sont empreintes d’un humour très british entre tragique et comique, poétique et burlesque. L’utilisation du plan fixe, l’esthétique minimale, la mise en œuvre d’associations d’objets usuels et d’astuces visuelles low-tech, la présence de leur propre corps dans le travail, la création de micro-actions dérisoires, dont le résultat se situe invariablement entre échec patent et réussite aléatoire, constituent les grandes caractéristiques de leur pratique artistique.
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source: artnewsorg

No Time is the first solo show in Portugal of the British collaborative duo John Wood & Paul Harrison. This exhibition is one of the exercises that results from the project presently being developed at the Ikon Gallery, in Birmingham, under the title “Some words. Some more words”, which will last around one year. Several presentations are foreseen.
If the traditional view of an artist is that of a solitary figure in their studio, then the collaborative practices that have proliferated in recent contemporary art promote the idea of dialogue as a source of creation. John Wood (born 1969) and Paul Harrison (born 1966) have worked together since 1993. Their partnership epitomises collaboration as intrinsic to the process, both mutually supportive and antagonistic, a dynamic where one plus one equals much more than two.
Their work arises out of a curiosity with the world around them, as the outcomes of recurrent questioning: “What if we did this?” and “Why not?” Initial ideas take the form of experiments with objects or people – the artists themselves. Characteristically humouris derived from choreographed events, the artists, like the objects, subjected to assorted actions and tests. Sequences of exchanges could be construed as a form of play: both as a joyful activity without immediate outcome other than a thing in itself, and as a physical performance, for the camera.
The development of new work starts with sketches as a means to exchange ideas. While the final outcome may be a video, print, photograph or sculpture, the notion of drawing as a means of planning, mapping space or representation remains at the core of their practice. Wood and Harrison’s practice often involves an engagement with the materiality of objects and the force of gravity, the phenomenon that shapes the way things – or us – stand and fall.
Such investigations of time and space are often shot in purpose-built environments that could be compared to a laboratory. Their experimentation follows a pseudoscientific method: the artists set the scene, define the starting point and control the conditions and parameters of action. Then, they set things in motion. Often chance can play a role in defining what actually happens; even when conditions are carefully controlled there is room for surprise.
Wood and Harrison’s practice engages with notions of pictorial or cinematographic illusion, visual plays on frame, scale and perspective. That the viewer is not able to see what happens outside the picture evokes a series of ideas enabling a variety of tricks and magic to be suggested.
The videos sometimes use the language of animation, the technique of showing successive still images to create an illusion of movement. These situations resemble deadpan incidents from silent films such as those acted out by Buster Keaton. Episodes have a gravitas, a seriousness created by the absence of any outward emotion which becomes a source of pathos, a melancholic humour.
Wood and Harrison use art as a platform to subvert reason and the functionality of things, while retaining direct connections to everyday life. They play futility against utility, creating space for innovation.
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source: carrollfletcher

John Wood and Paul Harrison explore the physical and psychological parameters of the world around them through a series of immaculately constructed video works, informative and uninformative text pieces, drawings, doodles and half thoughts, and quite useful sculptures. As trust and support, and cause and effect are played out through simple material and conceptual gestures, the artists question and ultimately affirm a human position in the world that is essentially positive.

Since Wood and Harrison’s first collaboration in 1993, their video works have evolved from single shot ‘studies’ filmed against neutral backgrounds to longer pieces in which a sequence of actions unfold within constructed locations that have more implicit meaning and contribute to greater narrative complexity. The videos maintain a strict internal logic, with the action directly related to the duration of the work. Inside this ‘logical world’ action is allowed to happen for no apparent reason, tensions build between the environment and its inhabitant, play is encouraged and the influences on the work are intentionally mixed.

John Wood and Paul Harrison have had major solo exhibitions at Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Kunstmuseum Thun, Switzerland; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. Selected group shows include British Council Touring, China; Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; Kunsthalle Tallin, Estonia; Whitechapel Gallery, London. Works held in collections include MoMA, New York; Tate, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; The Arts Council Collection, British Council Collection, and the Government Art Collection, UK.