Philip Speakman

Chapel Perilous
HD video
07:57 looped
2023

 

Viewing link on request.
 

Chapel Perilous ‘weirdens’ a familiar online encounter to propose the internet as something like the forest of gothic literature; a place of transformation and ensnarement, enlightenment and radicalisation, wonder and horror all stemming from the same source. The uncanny nature of social media’s performative story telling becomes heightened, as the work tries to understand the infectious stories and viral videos we encounter whilst scrolling our digital lives as something like the folk tales of past ages.
 
Through references to structural film, horror movies, contemporary internet trends, and fin de siècle weird fiction, Chapel Perilous recreates the echo chambers of online discourse to drag the viewer down the rabbit hole. With a narration that crumbles under its own weight, the work’s narrative begins to eat its own tale, borrowing the ouroboros logic of TikTok’s videos to trap the viewer in an infinite strange loop to explore how facts and beliefs are formed online, and the role of play, performativity and storytelling within these information economies.

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Exhibited at Slade Graduate Degree Show 2023.