The Perfect Human - Single channel video 3mins 

 

This work has been widely exhibited including shows in The Institute of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia, SKUC, Slovenia, Platform Finland, The Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, and Queen Street Gallery, Belfast.

 

In The Perfect Human, man is placed as the object, whose actions become a problematic and comedic backdrop for a found audio. We are told "We are going to see the perfect human being in action". The stilted and obviously staged actions portray a mock visualisation of Nietzschean "Ecce Homo" fragility. At the heart of the video is a powerful existential theme. The Perfect Human gives us the artist in his pyjamas. This is the human being just after dawn or just before bed: full of potential or as good as dead. A Homo sapien in his small

earth-bound space, surrounded with bits and pieces of technology; some light, some power, some space. We see a witty combination of vain posturing and committed karate. With limited resources, wonders Clare, how might this human being make an impact, how might he effect change. The playfulness of the work screams that the artist lives, at once decadent and yet naive, alone in his own space, fighting the barriers of his own creativity to declare, This is me! and/or This is who I would like you to think is me. 

 

Dr. Ken Neil                                            

Head of the Forum for Critical Inquiry    

Glasgow School of Art