A long-term project, whereby a bush appropriate for topiary is planted. As the bush grows, it is trimmed to form the shape of a nuclear mushroom cloud.
installation
Carousel of Death /
A fun-fair carousel, where each of the horses is named after a horse that has died in the Grand National.
Evil Portal /
A huge holographic installation in a desert somewhere.
This is based on (essentially a recreation of) a scene from the film ‘Time Bandits’.
In one scene of the film, the Time Bandits find themselves in a desert and come across an invisible barrier they can’t pass through. They start arguing and one of them picks up a nearby skull from a deceased animal (maybe human, I need to check) and throws it at the person they’re arguing with.
The skull misses the person and smashes through the invisible barrier, shattering it like a massive piece of glass, and making a huge hole in it, which reveals The Fortress of Ultimate Darkness (a scary castle) behind.
This sculpture/installation would be a massive glass hologram in the desert, in the shape of a huge broken sheet of glass, with an image of a scary fortress/castle in it.
Est. 1974 /
An illuminated shop-sign (3D, exterior, double-sided, sign - of the sort you more traditionally get/got outside of American stores) that says, large:
‘S Mark Gubb’
and smaller underneath…
‘Est. 1974’
New Work - 'So Good!' /
Mid-to-large scale sculptural renderings of the shocked-face, hand clap, high-five, and fire emojis.
A second part to this work (maybe the entire work..) is a photograph of these works posted on Instagram.
Ring of Fire /
A slow-motion video of a 1970s Evel Knievel wind-up toy being jumped through the middle of a burning car tyre (set up like a flaming hoop that stunt-bikers jump their bikes through).
The video starts as a close crop, front-on, to the centre/hole of the tyre.
The tyre is doused liberally in flammable liquid and set alight.
Through the hole, in the distance, we see the toy being wound up and released, jumping through the centre of the tyre off a small ramp.
After the toy has passed through the tyre, the camera slowly pans out to show the entire burning tyre, full-frame.
For several minutes (final length to be decided in the edit) the film focuses on the burning tyre, before fading to black.
Ghost Room /
Using air-conditioning units connected to a weather-app via a computer, the room/gallery will be kept at the local (and live) temperature of Williamsburg in New York.
When I came up with this idea I immediately thought it should be Williamsburg, for no more conscious reason than it’s somewhere I would often like to be, but aren’t.
I’ve since come to think of how Williamsburg has been described as cool, as hot, and for many people is now something of a cultural ghost town, due to gentrification.
It would be possible to come up for a conceptual justification for setting the temperature to pretty much any town or city in the world.
A key recommendation is that wherever the work is installed, a town/city is chosen somewhere in the world that has a significantly different temperature/season/weather-pattern, to ensure the work is physically effective on entering the room.
Nike Air Bathroom /
This is a sculpture that consists of a pair of large Nike Air trainers nailed to the wall (the soles of the shoes flat on the wall, the shoe facing ‘up’ the wall, with the nail going through the toes).
The two trainers are positioned either side of a ceramic urinal divider, of the kind you find in men’s public bathrooms to divide the space between the urinals.
Positioned inside each trainer is a single urinal-cake (the perfumed cleaning blocks that are placed in urinals).
The sculpture should be positioned on the wall at urinal height.