Jeremy Hutchison: i-
Product Pleasure Projects, Kiosk at Carillon Court Shopping Centre, Loughborough, LE11 3XA
10 January 2014 - 18 January 2014
From the Press Release
Artist Jeremy Hutchison new project, i-, which has arisen from discussion with academics in Loughborough University’s prestigious Design School, explores our attachment to products. Like steel hands in velvet gloves. And solid brass palladium. Smoothed, shaped and welded to your palm. Suspended around natural curves. To be adjusted, beneath the gleaming finish, to the touch. To your curves. And quick fingertips. With natural contours: an ergonomic trigger. A product.
From 10 - 18 January 2014 a large glass cube located within Loughborough’s Market Street was taken over to present the latest exhibition by artist Jeremy Hutchison. Using the language of advertising as well as that of contemporary shop spaces, i- is an investigation into our emotional attachment and relationship with ‘products’, and the tactics employed by major brand campaigns. Hutchinson has constructed a commercial shoot using professional hand models and the exhibition displays large scale photographic images alongside bronze objects and a new film. He says, ‘while ordinarily employed to hold products for advertising campaigns, here the models have been commissioned to handle lumps of clay. The ‘products’ are twisted clods of mud, hollowed around the models’ immaculate palms. They are perfectly ergonomic: tailored, customised, unique’.
Having trained in linguistics and written TV commercials for Coca-Cola, Hutchinson’s practice is driven by an interrogation of consumer culture. Working across installation, video and sculpture, he designs situations that propose alternative kinds of logic within commercial environments. Examples of his practice can be seen in two recent projects, ERRATUM® (2012) and Fabrication (2013) in which he enlisted factory workers around the world to deliberately manufacture their products as ‘seconds’ and then presented them as a glossy luxury item.
A co-commission by Radar, Loughborough University for the Product Pleasure programme, and Rurart in France, i- has been developed in response to research by Dr Samantha Porter, of Loughborough University’s Design School, into ‘design and emotion’ which explores how consumers see products as sensorial, emotional and meaningful experiences.
Nick Slater, Director of Radar said he was ‘excited about working with Jeremy and the University’s Design School on this project. The use of a shop space in town was an ideal setting to explore issues around consumer culture, and how through packaging and advertising an attempt is made to engender an emotional response to the product on offer’.
