Total Recall

As part of the Pictures Generation (a group of 1970s New York media artists), pioneering US artist Gretchen Bender (1951-2004) questioned the politics of entertainment and mass media products. Early on, in the 1980s, her works offered an outlook upon the coming revolution of the digital and its multiple impacts upon contemporary culture: accelerated globalisation; increasing levels of surveillance; the corporate production of desire; and the 24/7 newsfeed culture we experience today.

Total Recall (1987) is a monumental multi-channel video installation. It assembles twenty-four stacked TV monitors and three projection screens to present a compelling eighteen-minute performance of moving images. Sourced from US TV commercials as well as Hollywood films, the footage is edited to a rapid beat in order to create a pulsing stream of visual over-stimulation. Bender’s work, presented in Scotland for the first time, is a truly immersive experience that critically reflects on the power of media.

Supported by The Block, Robert Longo and Culture & Business Fund Scotland