Ourhouse Episode -1: Time
- Submitting institution
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Leeds Beckett University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 37
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- Harris Museum, Preston; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first exhibition
- -
- Year of first exhibition
- 2016
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Ourhouse (2010- ) portrays an English country estate that plays host to a range of absurdist narratives satirising the upper-class decadence of the Maddox-Wilson family. This latest episode, Ourhouse Episode -1: Time incorporates Mellors’ research into Upper-Palaeolithic studies. In a key surrealist move, time is decreed a physical material with its own economy, an unevenly distributed resource.
The method represents a slight departure from earlier episodes of Ourhouse. A 60-minute prequel to the story so far, Time switches the action to the estate’s ‘northern wing’: Preston Bus Station. This Brutalist icon is invaded by Neanderthals, who abduct and eat the main character in a ritual that uses the tropes of late capitalism to satirise austerity and wealth separation.
Written, directed and co-produced by Mellors for permanent acquisition by Harris Museum, Preston, on the occasion of his winning the Contemporary Art Society Prize (2014), Time is co-produced by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, who, since exhibiting the work in their inaugural 2017 Triennial, also acquired it for their permanent collection. An interview with Mellors appeared in the Triennial catalogue, and another with Tala Madani appeared in the NGV magazine. The Triennial received national and international press coverage, having a record-breaking 1.2 million visitors. Other supporters include Stigter van Doesburg, Amsterdam; Monitor, Rome; The Box, Los Angeles; Matt’s Gallery, London.
The fifth episode of Ourhouse, Time’s significance lies in blending experimental approaches to film-making with mainstream production methods. The entertainment value of a middlebrow TV sitcom is rethought along anthropological lines. Deployed within a combination of installation art, sculpture and free improvisation, the cast embodies a new vision of our culture industry in which the credibility of an actor’s performance rests on the incorporation of their thespian skills into a wider, more elastic ensemble.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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