Ella Barclay
Access Remote Fervour

“Access Remote Fervour explores the interplay between the physical world and the immateriality of ideas, data, spectres and echoes. Taking inspiration from the ways humans store and transfer information – from written text in ancient Mesopotamia to giant underground server farms – the work considers the ethereal nature of data and thought.

Tanks of water feature in the darkened gallery. Mist swirls across the surface, gently rising and revealing human forms swimming across the glowing surface. Luminous echoes of the figures appear in the tanks. The human forms seem caught in a limbo between worlds, in an eternal cycle of formation and dissipation. Access Remote Fervour suggests the eerie presence of a consciousness within the watery capsules, a life-force without physical form trapped in a state of threshold. With their protruding wires and organic fluid, the tanks have the look of a crazed science experiment, like an amniotic pool for a Cronenbergian digital birthing. They feel both digital and supernatural, pointing to something of the human soul caught in the electronic transfer of data and light. A Geist in the machine.” By Erin Coates, 2016