Immersion - Robbie Cooper. An eye opener.

This exhibition was at the National Media Museum and I thought it was really powerfully thought provoking and interesting.It looks at the increasing relationship between contemporary media immersion we experience on a daily basis.

These images are from the archive magazine which i purchased as you were unable to take photographs.



Jack Peacock watching Peppa pig (2010)

Janey Kate Holmes watching Peppa Pig (2010)

Benjamin Kubler playing Grand theft Auto 4 (2008)

The most interesting thing about the stills, is that you cant tell who is watching what until you read the caption. In one a girl is grinning widely, is she laughing at a cartoon, a comedy... it is actually the execution of a Mexican Soldier.


Sumara Bi Sultan watching Torture and Execution of a Mexican Zeta soldier,(2009)

The work captures the relationship of people and the media. The artist recorded children watching programmes such as 'in the night garden' and peppa pig and older children playing violent video games.The images are the
stills from the video. It is definitely worth a look and opens your eyes to the world of children's 'entertainment'

The photographer and video artist films people through a screen (in which a Red digital camera is embedded) watching a range of different visual stimuli, from computer games to horror films, footage of executions to children’s cartoons. He then takes stills from the footage and the extremely high-resolution, densely saturated portraits are the resulting works of art.





The thing that registered with me the most is the unfazedness that some of the children are showing whilst playing violent video games whilst others express sheer delight.In the film, the sound is a key giveaway to what the children are watching, there are comments which also give away the nature of some of the games.


"When one considers the extent to which our lives are spent staring at a screen – absorbing, downloading, interacting, passively and actively – it pays to see what’s happening in our faces when the screen shoots back. The results are unguarded examples of human emotion expressed in an entirely one-sided exchange - a fascinating byproduct of the technological and internet revolution - amusing, heartwarming and also rather dark at times." Wallpaper.com

Link to review