GLISS
19.04.2012 — 27.05.2012
Benedict Drew
In his practice Benedict Drew (b. 1977) works across video, performance, sound and other media. His work uses the apparatus of film, video and music to test and reflect upon technology and its oscillation between the exalted and the commonplace, between desire and redundancy. Using the idea of illusion and illusionism in the context of moving image, his work embraces both hi and low tech devices and tools in creating fantastical worlds that are conditioned by, but aim to resist, the hierarchies of authority and control.
Benedict Drew lives and works in Whitstable and Margate. In 2011 he graduated from the Slade School of Art and exhibited the work ‘The Persuaders’ at The James Taylor Gallery, London and Circa Site, Newcastle. Since then he has shown at Banner Repeater, London, collaborated with Auto Italia South East, London: ‘Talking Objects in Space’, and with Rhodri Davies as part of ‘CIRCA Projects’ Seeing in The Dark’ exhibition, Newcastle, October- November, 2011.
He has frequently collaborated with a diverse mix of artists and musicians including Otomo Yoshihide, Rhodri Davies, Greg Pope, Emily Richardson, ‘The Work In Progress’, Sachiko M and Emma Hart performing often in the UK and internationally including the Tate Modern , London (with Sachiko M), the Yamaguchi Centre for Art, Japan (with Otomo Yoshihide. In collaboration with Emma Hart he has performed at Rotterdam Film Festival, ‘Kill Your Timid Notion’, Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre, ICA London, ‘Performa 09’ New York and The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art as part of ‘images festival’ where they together received an ‘OCAD Off Screen Award’ for the installation ‘untitled seven’. Benedict Drew has made many radio works for Resonance FM , most recently the series ‘Unter Radio’. For many years he curated the ‘London Musicians’ Collective annual festival of experimental music’.
