RITES OF THE ZEITGEBER

Verity Birt (UK)

WEST WARD WORKS - PART OF THE GROUP EXHIBITION MEDIA ARCHAEOLOGY: EXCAVATIONS
Guthrie Street
DD1 5BR

The Zeitgeber (‘time giver’ or ‘synchroniser’) is honoured by a triadic henge of stacked CRT monitors in which past durations collide with future vacuums. Strange extra-terrestrial topographies are traversed across geological time and the internet. Curious substances are unearthed and lost languages resurrected. Fragments from Mina Loy, J. G. Ballard and Henri Bergson emerge amongst an archaeology of media from Super 8, VHS, to HD. Time bends from matter, history is up-set and the clock is obsolete.

Verity Birt works through a process of excavation (online and on-land) of archaeology, technology and mythology. Through her practice, she aims to mobilise narratives from epistemologies that have been historically suppressed and eradicated. Imagination, storytelling and mythmaking are invoked through sculpture, performance, text, sound and moving-image; creating thresholds into multiple durations and materialities.

About the Artist:

Verity Birt (UK) is an artist based in London. She studied an MA in Moving Image at the Royal College of Art (2013–2015) and a BA in Art Practice at Goldsmiths University of London (2008–2011). She is involved with collaborative research groups; The Future is a Collective Project, Reconfiguring Ruins and a founding member of women artists collective Altai. This summer, Verity was artist in residence at BALTIC and The Newbridge Project in Newcastle. Previous exhibitions include Our House of Common Weeds; Res. Gallery, London (2017); Relics from the De-crypt @ Gossamer Fog Gallery London (2017), Altai in Residence, Experiments in Collective Practice Dyson Gallery, London (2017); Chemhex Extract Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen (2016); Feeling Safer, IMT Gallery, London and Gallery North, New York (2016); Come to Dust, Generator Projects, Dundee (2016)