Inventory

The centre piece of “Frustrated Actions and Futile Gestures”, from which the exhibition took its name, was a nine screen grid of screens depicting figures perpetually repeating various activities - a man pulls a heavy cart up a hill only to pause and let it roll back down to the bottom and then start the process again. This key work presented nine actions ritualistically repeated in a three stage pattern; the passive scene, build of tension through action, release of tension through reversal or failure of action (the reset scene). We took this idea of compression and release to inform the typography, a combination of a super condensed and very extended cut of the same typeface. They also referenced billboard and type use in film and were set very close to the edges of all formats to heighten the uncomfortable tension. The Private View invite featured a key still from the title work, where a middle state in the three stage loop can be observed. This was coupled with an additional invite foil blocked in white and cut at the films aspect ration 16:9 and in a textured red card the picked up on the clothing worn in the scene.