Host
Mix-media installation and performance
Commissioned by Proforma
Artist Darren Nixon and I were commissioned to create work for Desire Lines Pavilion, a Venice Biennale 2024 collateral event. We formed a fake band and performed hard techno cover versions of songs which addressed the conflicted emotions we felt in visiting Venice, a place which is being destroyed by mass tourism. The songs addressed issues of guilt, parasitism, Sainthood and apocalypse, from Ship of Fools by the Doors to It’s a Sin by the Pet Shop Boys.
Our performance is staged inside a confined, smoke-filled space, with an audience watching from outside through an internal window. For our residency in Venice, this space resembled a confession booth which we built from scrap materials found in the city. The installation housed a series of Venice-inspired videos, framed by golden single-use paper plates we found discarded on the street, commonly used across Venice to serve takeaway food to tourists.
Host became the inspiration for our event The Same Deep Water as You at Pink in Stockport, May 2025.