- Venue
- Cell Project Space
- Location
- London
Through a narrow alley hung with palm trees, and up the steel staircase, I enter Cell Project Space. This affordable studio and gallery complex in East London is committed to showing the work of emerging artists. Bearing that in mind, I am prepared to see the unexpected – though not quite in the sense I soon will.
The gallery is completely empty – with the exception of a variety of heating devices. The walls are peppered with black powder coated heaters and fans. Boasting brilliant fuchsia plugs and neon orange cables, the appliances compete for the viewer’s attention. Walking through the space, I suddenly become aware of the glare of a newly switched on heater on my back; a feeling not unlike being watched.
The red glow evokes flesh, and the curious adaptability of appliances related them to bodies. Certainly, this is the one exhibition in London where the invigilators can’t complain about the cold. The all-pervading hum of machinery anchors the viewer in the space. It is all about the detail here: a small red lightning recalls Ziggy Stardust and the glory days of glam, while the engraving of DRAY AND SONS upon LED lamp casing makes a bold claim to authorship.
These beautiful devices were factory produced, hacked and radically rewired by the artist. The interest in functionality is linked to Dray’s credo of empowerment through being able to provide things for oneself. This is why she has learnt to build computers – so that she can actively partake in the environment we now all inhabit.
How many of us would be able to design, assemble and programme a functioning heater? Increasingly, we are at loss against the ever-amassing wealth of technological know-how. We are constantly exposed to information, and yet we may never be able to use it to our advantage. I believe that there are very few people on this planet who know every component of the laptop I am writing this on. In the age of specialization, this may worry few. And yet, inability to comprehend the machinery that surrounds us opens the door to blind following and, eventually, exploitation. Far too often we take the framework for granted. Successful products have become universal tools that orchestrate the whole of society.
The rhythm of device activation points to a whole side of the exhibition that remains invisible beyond the gallery walls: ring amps, spurs, timers and other imperceptible essentials. The work has a very literal presence in the room in a way that is clearly indebted to minimalist sculpture of the 1960s. There is a mutual relationship between the work and the building, as appliances are orchestrated to turn on and off at specific times in response to the gallery’s power capacity. Reliance on the architectural specification of the space is a ploy to remove the artist from making a series of arbitrary decisions. It highlights the functionality of the work, while at the same time endowing the objects with their own agency.
Named after the artist herself, DRAY constructs a valid parallel between branding, machinery and selfhood. It suggests a rearrangement of power relations within the traditionally masculine manufacturing industry. In Dray’s own words, it is also a gesture of protest against the “quiet aggression and monotony of the standardisation process”. The artist opposes the processes of market domination that bypass the public. The old device of the artist’s hand is used to guard the viewer against passivity and blind following. DRAY is a powerful reminder that technology is never a given.
