Mat Collishaw - Throbbing Gristle | Haunch of Venison

Here is a zoetrope, a cylindrical device that produces the illusion of action from a rapid succession of static images. Entitled 'Throbbing Gristle', the two metre-wide sculpture features one hundred and eighty mythological figures, including a Minotaur, the Three Graces, a she-wolf and a cherub, captured in various stages of motion. As the zoetrope begins to spin, the forms of the figurines blur, before becoming magically animated by a strobe light which transforms them into coherent, moving characters. 'Throbbing Gristle' represents Collishaw's reflection on the condition of looking at things. Against the eerie twilight created by the mechanised artifice of the zoetrope, the characters appear to take a perverse interest in each other while we peer curiously at them. Collishaw makes comment on the mechanised action of human procreation; we reproduce like animals and automatons at the same time that social code requires us to behave decorously.

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