Audience member at ArnolfiniInstallation at ArnolfiniAudience members at ArnolfiniGrant Moxom preparing installation at 20 Wellington RoadA stack of VHS tapes

A disrespectful response to the Blast Theory archive. Take your pick from scores of VHS tapes scattered on the rug. Load them into nine players and get mixing.

 

Our VHS archive contains over 200 tapes, featuring footage from 1994 to 2003. These tapes were digitised to computer and the resulting footage chopped up, edited and re-presented out of context in Jog Shuttler. The original tapes were for archival purposes - whatever could be recorded was recorded, because one day it might have been needed. In Jog Shuttler, participants are invited to mix nine simultaneous loops visually and aurally to re-purpose these archives in a way never originally intended.

A stack of VHS tapes

A disrespectful response to the Blast Theory archive. Take your pick from scores of VHS tapes scattered on the rug. Load them into nine players and get mixing.

Our VHS archive contains over 200 tapes, featuring footage from 1994 to 2003. These tapes were digitised to computer and the resulting footage chopped up, edited and re-presented out of context in Jog Shuttler. The original tapes were for archival purposes – whatever could be recorded was recorded, because one day it might have been needed. In Jog Shuttler, participants are invited to mix nine simultaneous loops visually and aurally to re-purpose these archives in a way never originally intended.

Participants sit at a red vinyl chair in front of a low table, which houses nine VHS players and a mixing desk. Beyond the table is a three-by-three grid of old, 14″ CRT televisions, each one connected to a VHS player. Beside the table is a pile of 60 VHS tapes, each with a short descriptive label. Each of these tapes contains its own video clip, looped continuously for 15 minutes – each loop is a fragment of the Blast Theory VHS archive.

By controlling which loops are played simultaneously, and by rewinding, pausing, and mixing the sound levels of the tapes, the participant is able to create her or his own mix of picture and sound. By colour, content, beat – the footage suggests no right or wrong way.

Referring back to the irreverent Hollywood-stunt-pop-complilation Choreographic Cops in a Complicated World (2000) and the intimately interactive An Explicit Volume (2001), the work gives one participant at a time a remix kit for nine years of low resolution experimentation, choreography, anxiety and loud music.


Jog Shuttler is a commission by Performing Documents, which will premiere as part of the Redux Symposium at the Arnolfini in Bristol in December 2012. Performing Documents is funded by the AHRC, and hosted by the University of Bristol, in partnership with University of Exeter, Arnolfini and In Between Time.

Jog Shuttler was created by non zero one’s John Hunter in collaboration with Blast Theory’s Matt Adams. As well as his work with non zero one, John is a freelance photographer and designer working under the name RULER. John worked with Blast Theory for four years; first as a performer and production assistant, and then as Artists’ Assistant and finally as an Associate Artist. We were delighted to work with him again for this piece.

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