Indeterminate Objects (classrooms). A solo digital commission for the Photographers Gallery, London (Oct 2017- Jan 2018)

Title: Indeterminate Objects (classrooms) – a commission for the Media Wall, The Photographers’ Gallery, London
Output type: Exhibition, Commission
Location: The Photographers’ Gallery, London
Date: October 2017- January 2018

Indeterminate Objects (classrooms) was produced as a commission for The Photographers Gallery in London, where it was screened on their Media Wall from October 2017 to January 2018. This piece utilized photography, 3D imaging and digital animation to explore the impact of 24/7 online culture on the lives of children.

The work was shot in an Edinburgh primary school, with the camera moving continously through the various rooms of the school. Combining photography with the three-dimensional techniques more usually associated with computer games such as Minecraft, a series of standard classroom interiors at the school are presented. The traditional elements – desk, bookshelf, children’s drawings, teacher’s desk – are linked by a series of floating 3D visuals representing the influence of new technologies. As these abstract forms hover and rotate above the desks, they cast shadows on the classroom floor, which appear as real as those cast by the classroom furniture.

This piece was the result of an ongoing research project exploring the impact of gaming and digital interaction pre-adolescent children. In Indeterminate Objects (classrooms), both personal observation and contemporary research into the subject were used to produce a piece of work highlighting the pervasive nature of digital gaming and the ways in which this can shape the way that children now think, play and learn. Indeterminate Objects reflects therefore on the persistent nature of these unseen forces and raise pertinent questions around the impact of ever-increasing data immersion on young identities.
This work was disseminated through the installation-exhibitions at The Photographers Gallery and on-line via a long-form interview on the Photographers Gallery’s site Unthinking Photography.

The full Press release for this commission can be found here: https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/press/press-release/wendy-mcmurdo-indeterminate-objects )

Partners, collaborators, interviews, reviews, etc.
To coincide with the launch of the commission, an interview with Wendy McMurdo and the Photographers Gallery’s digital curator Katrina Sluis was published on the Photographers Gallery’s digital blog Unthinking Photography’ This illustrated interview can be read in full here: https://unthinking.photography/themes/interviews/interview-with-wendy-mcmurdo [‘As her project Indeterminate Objects [Classrooms] screens on The Photographers' Gallery Media Wall, TPG Digital Curator Katrina Sluis interviews the pioneering artist Wendy McMurdo about the trajectory of her work since the 1990s and how debates around photography and digital culture have shifted’].

This commission is also featured in a short film produced in 2018 by The National Galleries of Scotland entitled The Digital Mirror (Director Marissa Keating). Film descriptor: ‘Wendy McMurdo works with photography and film to explore how technology and identity inform and relate to each other. With a particular interest in childhood and the world that children occupy, McMurdo’s work raises questions about advancing technology and what this means for younger people. In this film the artist discusses the influence that gaming has on her work, and how photography and social media are like digital mirrors which we hold up and see ourselves through’.

This film was made to be viewed both within the gallery and on the National Galleries Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxK_9ejF5nM

• https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/p...
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxK_9ejF...
• https://unthinking.photography/articles/...
• https://fargfabriken.se/en/right-now/ite...