Articulation of promise

‘Articulation of Promise’ is a silent single screen HD video. This video work is the result of an intervention into the gallery space by the creator and was made in response to the exhibition Peter Vogel: The Sound of Shadows, which took place at the University of Brighton Gallery, October 2011, curated by Conall Gleeson and Jean Martin. Historical photographs of women playing early 20th century electronic instruments the Theremin and the Terpsitone are the visual score from which Cunningham creates video tableaux. The performer of an instrument from the past, plays electronic sculptures of the present, sculptures which themselves have a visual aesthetic reminiscent of early modernism.The reconstructions in the tableaux embrace what is lost in translation between event, photograph and performer and are not intended to be exact visual representations of the photographs, but attempt to replicate the position of the body and the hands of the performers. These hand and body positions when placed next to the Vogel sculptures sometimes trigger the components in them to move, emit sound or light up. In the conflation of Theremin performer and electronic sculpture, questions are posed about the relationship between an operator and a machine and the coded nature of signals and gestures.