rachel maclean - ohnalifetolivefilms.com/share/rachelsportfolio.pdfit’s what’s inside that...

Rachel Maclean

Portfolio2011 - 2016

It’s What’s Inside That Counts2016

Commissioned HOME, University of Salford Art Collection, Tate, Zabludowicz Collection, Frieze Film and Channel 4.

3- screen and single screen installationDuration: 30 mins

In a dystopian metropolis fuelled by fevered connectivity, a race of rodents beneath the decaying streets hack the sales messages of a Kardashian-type Demigod, more cyborg than human, a successor to Fritz Lang’s Maria, a Maschinenmensch to rule over the digimash-fed masses. Part Baroque heaven, part post-apocalyptic nightmare,

the grotesque, cartoonish figures are seen to share in and compete for attention within a forever connected, corrupt, caffeine marinaded environment where power dynamics are repeatedly inverted and reconfigured.

Link to single screen film: https://vimeo.com/194004983Password: watch me

https://vimeo.com/194004983

We Want Data!2016

Commissioned HOME and Artpace.

6 x 2.1m by 3m, Dye Sublimation fabric prints

‘We Want Data’ is a series of wall hangings exploring themes of data management and consumption, part of a larger body of work that includes the film installation It’s What’s Inside That Counts (2016).

Detail taken from print.

Feed Me2015

Commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella and British Art Show 8 with support from Creative Scotland.Duration: 1 hour

Candy coated and colourfully confected, Rachel Maclean’s films skewer the habits and preoccupations ofcontemporary society. Produced by Film and Video Umbrella, ‘Feed Me’ is her most ambitious and audacious

project to date – a checklist of human cravings and failings that doubles as a hypermodern status update on the Seven Deadly Sins, with its swipes at the commercialisation (and sexualisation) of childhood and an

equivalent infantilisation of adult behaviour. Featuring a rogue’s gallery of memorable characters (all performed with extraordinary élan by Maclean herself), ‘Feed Me’ is a starburst shock to the taste buds that leaves you

wanting more.

Text by Steven Bode, Director of Film and Video Umbrella

Link to film: https://vimeo.com/171033975Password: watch me


Eyes To Me2015

Commissioned by Film London for Channel 4 Random Acts

“Eyes To Me” is a 3-minute short, which follows a doll-like protagonist named Sophie who moves through an enchanted garden inhabited by a race of cuddly Cyclopes known as the Eeblebops. As the video shifts between

different formats (a children’s television programme, a fashion shoot and a probing interview), Sophie is surveyed, coerced and reprimanded by an omnipresent male voiceover, whose treatment of her moves from a

tone of benign paternal care to one of cold, militant disapproval.

Shot entirely using green-screen, Maclean is the only figure in the work, miming to recorded audio and warping her features to create uncanny, cartoonish characters that exist within an oversaturated digital world.

Link to Film: https://vimeo.com/171042885Password: watch me


The Weepers2014

Commissioned by Comar, An Tobar, Mull

“The Weepers” is a 30-minute short film that playfully explores Scotland’s relationship with the Gothic horror genre. Drawing on a variety of cultural reference points, including Scottish myth, haunted house movies and Doctor Johnson’s trip to the Hebrides, the film is a surreal exploration of Highland culture post-Clearances,

where the number of sheep has gradually exceeded that of the human population.

Shot entirely on the Isle of Mull, the video follows The Doctor, an uptight, mainland bureaucrat, on a trip to Duart Castle, where he is to seize the assets of the failed wool-wear company of the eccentric Lady Maclean. While taking an inventory of the castle, the Doctor comes upon a number of ‘distractions’, not least of all the strange hauntings of the Weeper, a sheep-like phantom loosely based on the Gaelic myth of the Bean Nighe.



Please, Sir...2014

25:16, Looping split-screen videoCommissioned by CCA, Glasgow

“Please, Sir…” is a darkly comic adaptation of Mark Twain’s The Prince and The Pauper, exploring themes of greed, class and dependence within a cultural rhetoric of austerity and aspiration. Presented as a dual projection,

the characters interact between screens, appearing to inhabit two distinct worlds. Shot entirely using green-screen, the work creates a synthetic, shape-shifting realm in which an Adidas-striped

Oliver Twist mugs a Tudor Prince at knifepoint, a pauper steals £10 from the pocket of Simon Cowell and a vagrant youth is offered heroin by a well-dressed servant.

Maclean is the only actor in the work and mimes to found audio plundered from a myriad of sources, including Britain’s Got Talent, Jeremy Kyle and The Apprentice. The characters wear heavy make-up, prosthetic noses and

fake teeth, an appearance which sits somewhere between a Hogarth satire and the cheap-plastic grotesque of joke shop fancy-dress.



A Whole New World2014

30-minute digital videoCommissioned for the Margaret Tait Award 2013 in conjunction with Glasgow Film Festival, Creative Scotland

and Lux

“A Whole New World” visualises the fantastical ruins of a fallen empire. Combining grand narratives with cheap product placement, the work explores themes related to British Imperial history and national identity. Shot

entirely using green-screen, the film presents a computer-generated landscape littered with fallen statues and the distressed paraphernalia of a bygone age. Narrated by a statuesque Britannia Goddess, the narrative adapts a variety of existing tales, including St George and The Dragon and Tarzan. The action frequently shifts genre, moving from all singing, all dancing musical score to dry political debate, sedate period drama to battlefield

conflict. Maclean plays all the characters in the work, miming to audio in variety of languages and bedecked in an elaborate combination of prosthetic make-up, historical costume and Union Jack encrusted tourist tat.


Germs2013

3-minute digital videoCommission by Bold Yin for Channel 4 Random Acts

“Germs” is a 3-minute green-screen video, which follows a glamorous female protagonist through series of advertising tropes. Moving from a perfume to a bathroom cleaner commercial, she converses with a persuasive

masked woman and becomes increasingly paranoid about the omnipresence of microscopic germs. Rachel plays every character in the piece.

Link to film: https://vimeo.com/57583339

Over The Rainbow2013

42-minute digital videoCommissioned by The Banff Centre, Canada, as part of a 6-month Scottish Arts Council Residency

Inspired by the Technicolor utopias of children’s television, Over The Rainbow invites the viewer into a shape-shifting world inhabited by cuddly monsters, faceless clones and gruesome pop divas. Shot entirely using

green-screen the film presents a synthetic environment, part toy model, part computer generated landscape, which explores a dark, comedic parody of the Faustian tale, video game and horror movie genres.


The Lion and The Unicorn2012

12-minute digital videoCommissioned by The Edinburgh Printmakers for ‘Reflective Histories’, a group show at Traquair House in the

Scottish Borders

“The Lion and The Unicorn” is a short film inspired by the heraldic symbols found on the Royal Coat of Arms of The United Kingdom, the lion (representing England) and the unicorn (representing Scotland). The piece uses

representations of both alliance and opposition to explore national identity within the context of the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence.

The video features three recurrent characters: the lion, the unicorn and the queen. These figures seem to emerge from disparate genres, including shadowy historical reconstruction, playful nursery rhyme and pragmatic TV

interview. Inhabiting the rich historical setting of Traquair House in the Scottish Borders, they are seen drinking North-sea oil from Jacobite crystal, dividing up the pieces of a Union Jack cake and inciting conflict

over the mispronunciation of Robert Burns.

Link to film: https://vimeo.com/171035119Password:

Lolcats2012

13-minute digital videoCommissioned by The Visual Effects Research Lab, Dundee

“Lolcats” – inspired by the Internet meme of the same name – explores an amalgam of past and present manifestations of cat worship. Shot entirely against green-screen, the video presents a mutable space, at once a

mysterious lost civilisation and a modern day touristic fun park. The narrative centres on a young female protagonist, presenting her in moments of intrigue, fear, metamorphosis and decay. Journeying through this

erratic environment she encounters a bejewelled Katy Perry discussing dental hygiene with an aristocratic cat, stumbles upon an army of hostile feline cyborgs and is surgically dissected by a gothic physician.

Existing somewhere between the candy-coloured fantasies of ‘Disney Princess’ and the monstrous caricatures of a William Hogarth, “Lolcats” sits on a discomforting boundary between the sickly sweet and the grotesquely

abject.


The Innocents Diptych2011

The Innocents, 2011, 92.5cm by 124cm, Archival Digital Print

Rachel Maclean is an artist based in Glasgow. Since graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 2009 Rachel has exhibited across the UK and internationally. Recent exhibitions include: ‘Wot u :-) ?’ HOME, Manchester

and Tate Britain, London (2016-17), ‘British Art Show 8’ (2015), ‘Ok, You’ve Had Your Fun’, Casino Luxembourg (2015), ‘Please, Sir…’, Rowing, London, (2014); ‘The Weepers’, Comar, Mull, (2014); ‘Happy & Glorious’, CCA,

Glasgow, (2014). Recent screenings include: Feed Me at Athens and Luxembourg Film Festival (2016); Moving Pictures, British Council and Film London, (2015-16); Lolcats, Impakt Festival, Utrecht, The

Netherlands, (2014).

Maclean was nominated for the Film London Jarman Award in 2013 and 16, and she won Glasgow Film Festivals Margaret Tait Award in 2013. She has recently completed a residency at Artpace, San Antonio and will be

representing Scotland at the Venice Biennale 2017.

Contact: [email protected]

Website: www.rachelmaclean.com

Biography

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