April – May 2000 Arc Ark   (2010)

April – May 2000 Arc Ark   (2010)

Douglas Fir, Redwood, Western Red Cedar, Ash, Mahogany, Black Walnut, Oak, resin and fibreglass.
117 Sony DAT tapes containing BBC interviews with Members of Parliament outside the Commons and Westminster Hall from 14th April 2000 – 9th May 2000.
88cm long x 25cm wide x 21.5cm high

♦

Imagining the emergence of a devastating flood April-May 2000 Arc Ark is designed to float, but also to spin within a flow of water, freeing it from being snagged by other cultural or natural debris, allowing it the possibility of travelling long distances until recovered. Inside, the 117 DAT audio recordings of BBC interviews with MP’s during three weeks of spring 2000 potentially becomes the basis of knowledge for rebuilding a culture. Yet the rotation of the vessel containing them, while directing it towards recovery also has the capacity to cause distortion, transforming, obliterating and ultimately creating the contents’ collective message.

Chodzko’s interest in the unconscious, hauntings, dream states and places beyond perception as explored in this enclosed, hidden, private, ‘surplus’ space of a sculpture as vessel, container or carrier can also be seen in eg; This Is It (1992), Secretors (1993 – ), The woods shall rise up in those places where you pause  (1995), Ark-Eye from Great Expectations (2015),  Ghost  and Holding the Earth this Way (2022).  Sculptures such as the Mask Filter series and Props. For memorising the gravity of mime objects. … (2011 and 2013) also suggest that the viewer’s act of seeing needs to be secondary to other forms of sensing; with the former a seeing through and with the latter a feeling through, in the body.

♦

Related works:

A Hostile Environment   (2019)
cell-a    (2002)
Flashers       (1996-)
Ghost     (2010 – ongoing)
Great Expectations  (2015)
Rising   (2013)
Secretors          (1993 – )
The woods shall rise up in those places where you pause    (1995)
This Is It     (1992)