'Co.Lab' incorporates interactive and participatory elements to provide an environment where participants become involved in both destructive and creative processes.
The title is formed from an amalgam of 3 words:
Company/Cooperation, meaning a collection of people who need to work together, in order for the installation to work and Lab, as the space can be seen
as a place for people to experiment and be creative with the installation. ‘Co.Lab’ also looks and sounds like a shortened version
of the word Collaboration; which also links back to the notion of people working together.
The Co.Lab 'Shredder Piece' is comprised of elements developed from earlier works 'Shredder Piece 2' and 'Copoperation'
The machine Shreds pages from biographies and is only activated when two or three people stand on the correct combination of floor pads.
The biographies have been acquired from car boot sales and charity shops the full list of celebrities includes:
William Roache, Dale Winton, Katie Price,
Paul O' Grady, Helen Sharman Martine McCutcheon, Jackie Chan, Frank Skinner,
Ulrika Jonsson, Richard Branson, John Skeaping,
Sharon Osbourne, Sarah Ferguson,
Jawaharlal Nehru, Priscilla Beaulieu Presely, Murray Walker and Princess Diana.
'Sample Bags' were provided for participants to take away small amounts of the shredded biographical material.
There is a paper sheet inside with an area marked for people to rearrange the words they have gathered; forming new sentences,
poems, stories or what I call 'Random Biographies'.
Built from off-cuts of MDF, plywood and hardboard, these 'Sticker Sculptures were presented alongside dispensers containing coloured stickers.
Audience members were invited to apply stickers to the surface of each of the sculptures, helping to 'complete' them by adding colour, texture and pattern.
