Press Release


In justfornow, Monica Ross presents two new works - transcription and Bykermorning: the view from a deserted utopia – a home movie. Obliquely exploring our relationship to time and place these works have come outof Ross’s ongoing relationship with The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction essay by Walter Benjamin 1936) in the former, and the Byker estate in Newcastle upon Tyne in the latter. These works recall neglected concepts of an earlier modernism that envisioned technologies of mass production as having the potential to produce social utopias. That these possibilities remain latent in our culture is a belief at the heart of these works.

transcription combines works on the web (http://www.justfornow.net) with prints and actions in real time. The work aims to dissolve the separate status of the virtual and the material as they appear in their continuums. transcription is a performance web-work that began in 2001 in which Benjamin’s essay has been transposed into the Internet ‘by hand’, during a series of live events. Benjamin’s essay explores the impact of mass reproduction technologies on cultural and social values, reminding us that they facilitate the democratisation of culture.

Bykermorning: the view from deserted utopia – a home movie is an episodic video of images recorded from similar viewpoints, at different times of the year, from within a flat in Byker. Bykermorning… draws on previous works which have used the video camera as a ‘clock’. The outside and inside of this place is revealed by the camera in real time as changing lighting conditions and a shift through seasons disclose a marking of time.

The publication justfornow includes texts by Yve Lomax, Lisa Panting and Monica Ross. Designed by Hyperkit and published by Milch in collaboration with the Hatton Gallery.
ISBN 1 901832 22 8

justfornow has been developed with the support of an AHRB Fellowship in Fine Art, Arts Council England, School of Arts and Cultures, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.