The Absent Material Gateway with Lanark Artefax
Playing with the real and the surreal has become a striking element of Lanark Artefax’s artistic output. His latest project, produced in collaboration with Red Bull Music Academy, is no different. In exploration of the real and the speculative, Lanark transcends the line between fabrication and reality in his presentation of ‘The Absent Material Gateway’ – a mysterious and shadowy organisation at the core of what he terms an immersive, ‘multi-platform, bibliographical and transhistorical’ art installation of the same name.
For this ambitious installation, set to take place in his hometown of Glasgow at The Glue Factory, Lanark will be working alongside Glasgow-based writer Maria Sledmere and designer Martins Daknis, who seeks to create ‘new experiential universes’ through his work, with previous credits including the fabrication of bespoke products for Numbers signee SOPHIE in 2016. Participants will experience the installation alone, with a total capacity of just 50 people across four days.
On Sunday 19th November the installation will close with a live performance from Lanark himself. Masterminded in collaboration with LuckyMe Studio’s Shaun Murphy who has previously worked with the likes of Hudson Mohawke, Optimo, Dopplereffekt and recent Warp signee Kelela – the show will be Lanark Artefax’s first live performance in his hometown. Following the show’s debut in Poland for Unsound festival, it promises to be a momentous end to a forward thinking programme.
‘The Absent Material Gateway’ is open to selected participants from Thursday 16th November to Saturday 18th November with the ticketed live show taking place on Sunday 19th November.
Disclaimer:
The Lanark Artefax installation is produced in association with the only chapter of The Absent Material Gateway still in existence. Despite its ongoing involvement in the project, The Gateway wish to assert emphatically that the organisation is only willingly participating in the project as Lanark Artefax is a family friend and longstanding member.
The Gateway also wishes to assert emphatically that it is not an arts movement, is not interested in the arts, and has no aspirations to expand its present membership.
The Gateway refuses to dissolve completely into the milieu of human knowledge by way of public exposition. In spite of this, the organisation has, however, willingly donated specific fragments of its catalogue, as well its technical expertise, for the sole purpose of the Lanark Artefax installation.
The organisers of this exhibition were provided limited and sporadic access to the The Absent Material Gateway throughout the period between August 2016 and July 2017, but are prohibited from discussing its work beyond the limited scope of the installation itself. The objects and documentation showcased in this installation are the first of their type to be exhibited to the public.
