027 Motion Disabled : Simon Mckeown

Leeds City College - Technology Campus, LS2 8BL
17:00 - 01:00

Motion Disabled

We don’t often have the time to sit and study physical movement. It passes us by as we go about our lives: all kinds of physical shapes and sizes constantly moving past us at various speeds - we see people run, walk, struggle and push as they stride through life.  But, there is no one there who is ‘really normal’: there is only difference.   

Motion Disabled aims to show movement using clear and unambiguous imagery: the kick boxer who is also thalidomide; the cyclist with Cerebral Palsy; the footballer with Spina Bifida; and others.  These are movements that will not exist for much longer; society seems to want to be ‘normal’, to be squarer, flatter, more reduced and banal.  

In the work you will see virtual movements based on the day to day reality of the disabled actors involved. Questions are raised: how do shower with short arms? How do you answer the phone if you have no arms?  

The work enables the viewer to engage and explore ideas of normality and difference on a pathological and metaphysical level as a challenging art work that reveals who we all are to ourselves and others. A process that is particularly relevant at a time when bioscience is encouraging society to make complex genetic choices that will affect the future course of humanity.  Is the future of difference going to only be virtual? 

This work is supported by the Wellcome Trust, Teesside University and Outside Centre. www.motiondisabled.com and www.simonmckeown.com

The projected  is onto the side of Leeds City College. On the 1st April 2009 Leeds College of Technology, Leeds Thomas Danby and Park Lane College Leeds & Keighley merged together.

Projecting into the Future and Simon McKeown's involvement in
Light Night is funded by Arts Council England, and produced by ADA inc.