Project 17
Ye_soft_pipes/play_on by Robert Cervera
Curated by Tsering Frykman-Glen.
September 12th – October 10th 2020, Tangent Projects gallery.
Ye_soft_pipes/play_on
Verses taken from John Keats’s poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1819)
The poet loops around a Greek urn, querying it. “What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape / Of deities or mortals, or of both?”
He sees the hero in the dark of a bedroom, face lit blue by PC tower LEDs. “What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? / What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?”
Upgrade to liquid cooling. Run the code silently to eternity. “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on.”
Robert Cervera was Tangent Projects' first Cotangent Invited Artist in Residence (August 2019) and the work in this exhibition started life here.
The sculptural Gaming Horns that were dotted around the space are made out of liquid cooling tubes normally used in extreme gaming PCs. By blowing into them as if they were a wind instrument, Cervera produces musical notes which he then records and codes into sound compositions. A selection of his compositions were presented at Tangent Projects gallery, intertwined with gameplay videos in an immersive display.
Main video: 32 minute loop.
Robert Cervera is a London-based artist born in Badalona. He studied at Central St. Martins and the Royal College of Art, where he obtained an MA in Sculpture in 2014. His degree show won the Kenneth Armitage Young Sculptor Prize.
Recent exhibitions include ‘Yes And’, MOCA London and Kelder Projects (London); ‘Tomorrow Starts Here’, La Escocesa (Barcelona); ‘Identify your limitations’, Vitrine (Basel); Salon Acme, Zona Maco (México); Outpost Film Open, selected by Ed Atkins (Norwich and London); ‘Ichor’, Danielle Arnaud (London); Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition, Kunsthall Charlottenborg (Copenhagen); and ‘Rare Collisions of Purpose’, Boetzelaer|Nispen (Amsterdam).
Press
You can watch Robert talk about his exhibition on the arts and culture TV programme Taquilla Inversa here (from approx 0:26:30).
Ye_soft_pipes_/play_on by Robert Cerera - On View, Flash Art International Magazine