Picsel+

3 July - 4 August 2002

Pithy, innovative and downright odd, the work in Picsel+ will add to the vibrant life of the city during the Cardiff Festival 2002. Twenty-six artists were selected to make works with their only parameter a time limit of 15 seconds…


How much can you communicate in 15 seconds?

That was the invitation we made to the artists in Picsel+. Their answers are pithy, innovative and downright odd, from a karate-kicking furman, a fast-melting ice cream to a giant cat. From the self-portrait to the mini road-movie, Picsel+ has it all.

The Queen St display screen usually shows advertising material from businesses and the City Council. For 15 seconds every ten minutes, this flow will be interrupted by one of Picsel+’s artists. Sometimes low-tech, the videos risk being swamped by slick advertising slots that vie for your attention. But the works for Picsel+ have been selected precisely because in this competitive territory they can hold their own. They captivate an audience’s attention with their innovation, intrigue or peculiarity.

Picsel+ intervenes in the public space with moving images that have no political leaning or market drive. They invite passers-by into a new world that either works with or disrupts the city’s usual outlook.

Artists included -
Edward Adam’s 15 seconds are taken by a birthday girl blowing out her candles
Anna Best speeds up an ice cream fast melting
Cheri-Lee Birch plans her great escape, filmed from inside a crate
Carolyn Black slows things down with a quiet slot of moon-shadow through windows
Matt Butt & James Price have taken the 15 seconds and filled it with internet images available under the search ‘random’
Sally Cohen takes a sample from a super 8 film from a bike
Matt Cook plays with the expectation of sound. In 15 seconds a balloon is inflated to its full size until it bursts silently on screen
Michael Cousin’s short film titled ‘the whistling of the ring’ looks like the closing credits of a film, but the words that scroll up are words for fart in different languages
Anna Ellis presents a minute (as in small) museum, exhibiting the detritus of celebrities
Chris Evans returns to the code breaking jokes from childhood and spells out a message through pictograms
Nic Finch presents a mosaic of small screen images of the city playing in and out of the frame
Good Cop Bad Cop perform from a field outside Cardiff, inviting people to sing along
Paul Granjon‘s work entitled ‘Furman’ is simply that, a wig with legs shows us a perfect Karate kick
Lucy Harrison uses text to communicate to the audience
Paul & Paula re-enact 50 murders in 15 seconds
Rachelle Knowles enlarges her cat to the scale of the schlock horror monster lose in the city
Laresa Kosloff‘s sensitive films look at people at leisure
James O’Leary retraces the echo of people passing through
Akiko Nagami asks us to spot the loony, looking at the divide between loony (ha-ha) and loony (psycho)
Daniel Powell constructs a model spitfire
Sara Rees’ film of moths against the screen resonates and flickers at night
Jennie Savage replays an ariel view of the city over the centuries
Victoria Pea Tillotson‘s film looks at the delicate art of biscuit dunking
Lisa Wigham has produced a 15 second road movie about homespun cassette mixes and sunglasses

Programme