Vent

Vent is a three-screen video installation, produced by Common Culture (David Campbell, Mark Durden, Ian Brown) commissioned by mac, Birmingham, for the solo exhibition Common Culture Cabaret. Vent examines popular culture’s obsessive fascination with the excesses and indulgences of ‘celebrity’ and the public’s willingness to consume, and participate in, the cruel spectacle of television talent shows. Two screens depict a ventriloquist act, with a dummy and a ventriloquist next to each other in conversation. The third screen depicts a television audience slowly and mechanistically providing responses, from slow clapping to excited laughter, out of sync with the content and dynamics of the ventriloquist act. Combining traditions of cabaret with forms of presentation modelled on televisual spectacle, ventriloquism and impersonation are used to comically unravel the absurdly narcissistic and confessional nature of celebrity culture and highlight the in-authenticities of the entertainment industry.