The Screen
TweeterNicolas William Hughes
01 September - 30 September 2011
Tweeter is a research project exploring through absurdity our relationship with garden birds and a notion of anthropomorphic cultural transmission.
Cultural transmission describes the way people or animals within a society or culture tend to learn and pass on new information. The key aspect of culture is that it is not passed on biologically from the parents to the offspring, but rather learned through experience and participation. Anthropomorphic cultural transmission is a term I use to explore the absurdity I believe is shown in mans need to control the natural environment around them. I have taken our relationship with garden birds as a main example of anthropomorphic cultural transmission. A large number of bird species engage in cultural learning; such learning is critical for the survival of some species. The project encompasses a number of different art works developed using varying mediums and creative outputs including installation, participatory projects, performances, photography and video. Within the works created for Tweeter a character known as “the bird man” is often prevalent. This Character is a extroverted version of myself who seeks answers kinetically in performances and by engaging in conversations that may form relationships.
Nicolas William Hughes is a practising artist based in Swansea. He has recently completed his MA in Contemporary Dialogues, at Swansea Metropolitan University. His work is primarily lens based working mainly with Photography and Video often combining these efforts with Performed Acts and Participatory aspects.
