James Alec HardyPortfolio 2014 01

"For life, as far as it is lived in concreto, is above concepts as well as image. To understand it we have to dive into it and to come in touch with it personally; to pick up or cut out a piece of it for inspection murders it; when you think you have got into the essence of it, it is no more, for it has ceased to live but lies immobile and all dried up."

Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki

The essence of James Alec Hardy’s practice is a process concerned with the impact of technologies on our experience of life.

He uses video and audio to create compositions of images by manipulating vintage electronics.

His tools are obsolete devices from a former analogue age, wired together to generate feedback and create images without the use of cameras. Documented as schematic diagrams, the sequences are physically wrought by the artist's hand.The schematic feedback systems become sculptural installations of video monitors, which are presented as symbolic form.

Channel 7:13 schematic diagram

Channel 7:13 performance (5th June 2013)

The sculptural installation becomes a “broadcast system” which is performed live and recorded.

Introductory phase Transition extracts

The recordings are analysed and a selection of still images are extracted. These stills are made as C-Type prints, which are reverse-mounted on glass and represent abstractions of the live performance.

When installed in totemic arrangment, a modular narrative is displayed through the works

Biography

1979: Born Colchester, England1999: Camberwell College of Arts2002–Present: Studio based practice in South London

Selected Exhibitions and Performances

“Brewster’s House” : Testbed, Battersea London 2013“Big Deal” : Q-Park Cavendish Sq, London 2013“Odds and Sods” : ArtMoorHouse London 2013“Video Cutz” : DKUK Salon @ Ancient & Modern, London 2013“Noise in a Barn” Hidden Hill Festival, Lincolnshire 2013“James Alec Hardy Dominic Beattie” : The Depot Gallery, London !solo show" 2013“Modular 1304” : ArtMoorHouse, London !solo show" 2013“Trapped in the Machine”: The Hospital Club, London !solo show" 2013“Chinese Open -1” Centro Campista, London 2013“PATTER-NATION”: ArtMoorHouse, London 2012“Decadia Broadcast System”: Home Front, London (Solo show" 2012“ “This is the End of the Beginning”: ArtMoorHouse, London 2012“This is the Beginning of the End”: Home Front, London 2012“The Day of St George”: Home Front, London 2011Frieze Art Fair: Resovision & X-Ray presents 2010“Art Carousel”: Galleri 54, Gothenborg, Sweden 2010“Lightnight”: 42 the Bridgate, Leeds 2010“Iraq, No Phobia”: Elevator Gallery, London 2010“Signals”: Bussey Building, Peckham, London 2010“TERROR!”: X-ray at the perseverance 2010“No Soul For Sale”: Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London 2010“Manufacturing Contempt”: Marshall St Law, London 2010“Sounding Off”: Vitrine Gallery, London 2010“Eton Disorder”: The Fold Gallery 2010Supermarket Art Fair: Stockholm, Sweden 2010Subvision Festival of Art: Hamburg, Germany 2009“Das Verukt Labyrinth”: Hackney Wicked Festival 2009i-land residency: i-cabin Worcester/London 2009“Dadaism”: The Elevator Gallery, London 2008“Schadenfreuding”: St Giles Church, Camberwell 2008“The Electricity Bill”: Tate Britain, London 2007

Tel : + 44 (0) 7984 367 998jamesalechardy@gmail.comwww.sitbackandrelapse.com