In October 2014 Turner Prize nominated artists Jane and Louise Wilson will premiere a significant new video installation at IWM London. Undead Sun has been commissioned to mark the Centenary of the First World War and offers a unique artistic perspective on this era-defining conflict.
During the First World War, the advent of aerial warfare and surveillance triggered rapid advances in optics and other technological innovation. Alongside these, new counter-measures in the arts of concealment and camouflage emerged. Alluding to the threat of exposure from above, Undead Sun explores ideas around technology and visibility. The film itself is shown within a specially constructed installation, in which the viewer’s own movement and lines of sight are deliberately restricted.
Much of the imagery in the film is inspired by the visual culture of the period. Many sequences are based on the artists’ extensive research in the IWM (Imperial War Museums) archives and reflect on the reconstruction of narratives surrounding the war. Uneasy, dream-like sequences are acted out against the ominous backdrop of a giant wind tunnel. Staged vignettes offer glimpses of individual, human-scale dramas, as well as intimations of the darker side of the society of the time. The tunnel itself evokes larger- than-life forces at work, suggesting the relentless and cyclical drive of events. The rotating wooden blades of a fan return us to themes of the aerial and the air, but also hint at the visceral, elemental forces that the war unleashed, the terror of gas attacks, the violence of speed and social transformation.
This is the first iteration of an unfolding project, commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella, for IWM in partnership with MIMA, Middlesbrough and Wolverhampton Art Gallery for the Centenary of the First World War.