Andy Holden: Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape

Organised in collaboration with the Centre for Audio Visual Experimentation (CAVE) at the University of Leeds.

This new one-hour performance is the culmination of five years of idiosyncratic research and public lectures exploring the possibility of using the Laws of Motion as they appear in cartoons. It presents a theory that the world is now a cartoon, and explores how an artist might operate in a landscape in which everything has been done, everything is equally possible, yet certain things endlessly reoccur.
Taking ‘cartoon physics’ as its starting point, this dual-screen work, with artist appearing as narrator, via green-screen and as animated avatar, in the Cartoon Landscape, tells the history of the golden era of cartoons; interweaving quantum mechanics, philosophy, art history, and politics, to construct a set of Laws. The presentation mixes critical theory and conspiracy theory, oscillating between historical fact and bombastic speculation, each idea flowing into the next with the logic of a cartoon. Animated sequences sit alongside images from CERN, extracts from Stephen Hawkins, Greek philosophy, speculations on the 2008 financial crisis, Donald Trump, musings on the potentially animate nature of all matter, and the role of the artist in this post-human landscape.

Andy Holden
Andy Holden (b.1982, Bedford, UK) lives and works in Bedford, UK. Recent solo exhibitions include Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape, Wasp Studios, Glasgow International, (2015), Towards a Unified Theory of MI!MS, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2013) Spike Island, Bristol, (2014), and Kunsthalle Winterthur, (2015), Folly and Landscape, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh (2013), Chewy Cosmos Thingly Time at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK (2011), Cookham Erratics, Benaki Museum, Athens (2011), Art Now: Andy Holden, Tate Britain, UK (2010).

CAVE
Initiated by Dr Sam Belinfante (Academic Fellow in Fine Art and Cultural Practice) in 2016, in collaboration with staff and students from across the school and faculty, it is the ambition of CAVE to become the foremost centre for investigations into the ‘audio-visual’ within contemporary art theory and practice. CAVE will be the site for a series of iconoclastic exhibitions, workshops and symposia, supporting the international arts community whilst helping disseminate our research.

The event is free but please book here to guarantee your place. Please see The Tetley website for more information.
Due to the nature of this performance, visitors will not be able to join the event after it has started, so please ensure you arrive by 6pm to avoid disappointment.

Location details

The Tetley, Hunslet Road, Leeds LS10 1JQ