The War Itself: Cornelia Parker’s Official Election Art, Post-2016 Democracy and the Weaponisation of Social Media

IF 0.1 0 ART
Kit Messham-Muir
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Abstract

Introduction When a snap general election was called in the United Kingdom in 2017, Cornelia Parker, one of that nation’s most prominent and celebrated contemporary artists dealing often in war and conflict, was appointed as the official British election artist. The 2017 election followed less than a year after the 2016 Brexit referendum, as the Conservative government, committed to making good on the outcome of the 2016 referendum, hoped to have elected more pro-Brexit MPs into the House of Commons in an attempt to push through Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal with the European Union. The plan backfired, forcing May into leading a minority government, the second in a decade. This further prolonged and intensified the political turbulence and eventually led to May’s tearful resignation in 2019 and yet another general election later that year, called by the new prime minister, Boris Johnson. The 2016 Brexit referendum is commonly recognised as one of the most fierce and toxic votes in modern British history. Its campaigns were marked by widespread and blatant disinformation, overt ethno-nationalist politics, and the violent assassination of the pro-Remain MP Jo Cox. With the election following barely one year after the Brexit vote, and being triggered by the political impossibility of delivering the outcome of the referendum, Parker may well have felt more like an official war artist than an official election artist. Parker created two significant video works as the 2017 election artist. The first was Left Right & Centre (2017) (fig. 1), a haunting and aesthetically rich work shot mostly by drone in the chamber of Britain’s House of Commons, the democratically elected lower house of government. The work depicts the dispatch boxes at the centre of the Commons chamber stacked with various British daily newspapers, representing the left, right and centre of British politics. The drone’s rotors stir up the pages of the newspapers until the entire chamber is chaotically littered in drifts of newsprint. Parker’s other work, Election Abstract (2017),
战争本身:科妮莉亚·帕克的官方选举艺术,2016年后的民主和社交媒体的武器化
简介2017年英国举行大选时,英国最著名、最著名的当代艺术家之一科妮莉亚·帕克被任命为英国官方选举艺术家。2017年大选是在2016年英国脱欧公投后不到一年举行的,因为保守党政府致力于兑现2016年公投的结果,希望选举更多支持脱欧的议员进入下议院,以推动首相特雷莎·梅与欧盟达成协议。该计划事与愿违,迫使梅领导一个少数派政府,这是十年来的第二次。这进一步延长并加剧了政治动荡,最终导致梅在2019年含泪辞职,并在当年晚些时候举行了另一次大选,由新首相鲍里斯·约翰逊召集。2016年英国脱欧公投被普遍认为是英国现代史上最激烈、最有害的投票之一。其竞选活动的特点是广泛而公然的虚假信息、公开的种族民族主义政治,以及对支持留欧的议员乔·考克斯的暴力暗杀。英国脱欧投票后不到一年就举行了选举,而且由于政治上不可能公布公投结果,帕克很可能觉得自己更像是一位官方战争艺术家,而不是一位官方选举艺术家。帕克作为2017年的选举艺术家创作了两部重要的视频作品。第一部是《左-右与中》(2017)(图1),这是一部令人难忘且富有美感的作品,主要是在英国下议院(民选政府下议院)的会议厅用无人机拍摄的。这幅作品描绘了下议院中心的收发箱,里面堆放着各种英国日报,代表着英国政治的左派、右派和中间派。无人机的旋翼搅动着报纸的版面,直到整个会议室都杂乱地散落着新闻纸。帕克的另一部作品《选举摘要》(2017),
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