Past projects

Encyclopaedia Mundi: 7 August – 4 September 2003 >>
In partnership with The Space – Leeds Central Library, Folly Gallery, Q Gallery and funded by Arts Council England National Touring Programme.

This was a newly commissioned work by Tony Kemplen, which pushed the boundaries of language, translation and classification.

Encyclopaedia Mundi was a unique collection of objects specially selected for analysis and classification by Kemplen, through his trawling of local charity shops for disregarded treasures (Lancaster, Derby, Leeds).

In this work, he reflected upon the tradition of the Wunderkammer, or Cabinet of Curiosities, and explored the contemporary connotations of its medieval systems of classification and interpretation.

The collected objects formed an interactive installation; their images, captured with a CCTV camera, became the starting points for a series of software processes. The objects were analysed and endlessly reprocessed by sonification, speech recognition and imaging programmes.

Each process drew upon the immense collection of information in the Encyclopaedia Mundi database and on the internet.

As part of the exhibition in Leeds, Tony Kemplen was ‘in-conversation’ with Debra Klomp.

An exhibition catalogue with 47 pages of images and texts relating to the exhibition was produced and is on sale for £3. E-mail admin@pavilion.org.uk for more details.

Related Links
Tony Kemplen: www.kemplen.co.uk
Folly Gallery: www.folly.co.uk
Q Gallery: www.q-arts.co.uk