Michelle Hannah

Statue

1 August – 18 October 2014

This year, as the fine art community reflects on the past 25 years of contemporary art in Scotland, we are delighted to focus on the upcoming generation in a series of new works by emerging artists co-commissioned with Talbot Rice. The works will be presented within Counterpoint, an exhibition which aims to expand critical and conceptual thinking about visual art in relation to other subjects of learning. The selected artists all have a strong performative quality within their practice, and the commissioned artworks will be accompanied by a series of live performances. 

Romanticism is a key influence in the work of artist, performer and singer Michelle Hannah. Influenced by the founding constraints of Cabaret, she aims to engage, entice and repulse in equal measure through her use of artifice. Hannah exploits and extends this theatrical heritage in her performances, which explore the themes of technology, gender, identity and fame. For her festival commission she will produce a new body of video and computer based 3D work relating to her performance as a ‘dystopian chanteuse’ and consisting primarily of photographic prints, 3D scanning technology and ‘models’ appropriated from a digital landscape. Whilst being based on ‘real’ objects, (microphones, props, costume and the anatomy of the artist’s scanned body) the models are rendered into inventions rather than naturalistic representations, becoming hybrids of machine and organism, performer and sculpture, sound and vision. 

Supported through the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund.

Part of GENERATION, a landmark series of exhibitions celebrating 25 years of contemporary art in Scotland.

Mon-Fri, 10am-5pm; Sat and Sun, 12-5pm

Outside August: Tue-Fri, 10am-5pm; Sat, 12-5pm