John Smith’s Covid Messages

Abstract

Since May 2020, John Smith has been at work on an episodic series called Covid Messages, made from repurposed footage of press conferences in which Prime Minister Boris Johnson briefs the public on the status of the pandemic. Through six darkly funny instalments, the artist plays with the press conference as a site of ‘coded messages’, assailing the vacancy of political speech and the grotesque manoeuvres of the Conservative government with his characteristic wit. The following conversation took place online on 17 December 2020.