Marion Coutts interviewed at The Chisenhale Gallery about her work Cult

Marion Coutts’ work Cult, at the Chisenhale Gallery ‘investigated the phenomenon of the outsider encountering the group’. Nine small video monitors placed on nine narrow plinths, at head height were installed on a shelf or podium about eight inches above the gallery floor. An image of a cat’s head was seen on each monitor, with barely susceptible movements. This totemic and metaphorical work evoked a slowed down, ritualistic space where the multiple readings included undisclosed ritual, alienation, inclusion and exclusion. The whole staging of the experience of walking from the bright sunshine outside, then through a constructed light trap into the subdued light of the gallery, suggested a transition from the real world into a ‘tomb like’, contemplative and silent space.

Interview by William Furlong, October 2002

Audio Arts: Volume 21 No 2 Side A

http://www.tate.org.uk/audio-arts/volume-21/number-2