Wendy McMurdo & Paul Holmes

08|09 Alt-w Production Award - The Skater
www.wendymcmurdo.com

5th August to 5th September 2009, Wed-Sun, 10am-6pm.
Inspace, Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB

Exploring the impact of virtual technology on the lives of the young, Wendy McMurdo's photographic work, and her Alt-w funded collaboration with filmmaker Paul Holmes, study interactivity through the theme of skaters at once real, manipulated and beautifully mimicked.

They are joined by a series of portraits of young gamers at play immersed in a highly mediated world. These poised figures allude to how personal identity is formed in a virtual environment – where fantasy slides into reality and back again, within the looped world of the game.

According to Sherry Turkle, Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “Children grow up in a culture of video games, action films, fantasy epics, and computer programs that all rely on that familiar scenario of almost losing but then regaining total mastery: There is danger. It is mastered. A still-more-powerful monster appears. It is subdued. Scary. Safe."

This new body of work explores this disturbing dichotomy, examining the relationship and polarities – between traditional and digital recreation – and our need to play and explore both the scary and the safe.

Commissioned by Ffotogallery Wales and supported by Alt-w and New Media Scotland.

17th January to 1st March 2009.
Ffotogallery, Plymouth Road, Penarth, CF64 3DM

www.ffotogallery.org