Exhibition Review

David Cotterell: Monsters of the Id, (curator Helen Sloan).

John Hansard Gallery 11 February- 31 March

Installation artist, David Cotterell was sent to Afghanistan by the Wellcome Foundation, in 2008, to document the conflict in Helmand province. Not content with just recording and photographing, he is presenting an “experiment with advanced display technologies” at Southampton’s Hansard Gallery. This exhibition attempts to capture the disorientation of civilian observers within a militarised environment by containing complex networked activity and interactive systems involving custom built hard/software.

Upon entrance one is immediately immersed within an eerie Afghani landscape projected onto a wall, before human bodies dramatically emerge, walking forward to confront the “voyeurs” (see below). We, the watching thus become the watched in an unsettling role reversal.

Next, a room-size chalk model of mountains upon which Cotterell has, via computer technology, created illusory human shadows randomly traversing the terrain which dovetails with a 6 channel-HD collimated display of a vitalised desert landscape where the viewer’s experience is encouraged to hover between “sublime reverie and the quiet anxiety between periods of violence”.

 Cotterell’s exhibition sets exciting standards in terms of technology, conception and originality by encouraging the public to fully interact, but although his work is visionary, even provocative, the uninitiated could conceivably benefit from more guidance in terms of his photographic work.

David Cotterrell's website


How others saw it? The Guardian Guide 25th Feb