United Visual Artists head Matt Clark reflects on the past 20 years, the beauty of collaboration, and Synchronicity.
For over two decades, the idea of collaboration has dictated Matt Clark’s creative life allowing him to craft stunning visual narratives about the world around him. The gathering of individuals, materials and experiences, in order to utilise collective knowledge is what gave birth to this award-winning studio back in 2003.
Their latest exhibition Synchronicity, is the embodiment of this decades-long practice. Inspired by the philosophy of Carl Jung, Synchronicity is the largest exhibition UVA has created to date, connecting eight works throughout 180 Studios’ subterranean space. Conceptually, the works traverse a range of topics, from the daily overload of information via the media to the relationships between animals, technology, time and space – Synchronicity is a combination of works that will leave you with more questions than answers.
Matt’s first experiments with artistic collaboration came during his tenure as a student throwing underground raves in London. His experiments with music, space, and light are where he began to observe the relationships between alternative disciplines and the effects such combinations can have on people. All creatures on Earth communicate knowledge, and it is this communication between the disciplines and experiences of their practitioners that UVA utilises so well.
Synchronicity is a diverse experience with the installations – and the space they occupy – varying in size and shape. From large foreboding screen displays to wide-circular LED structures, UVA perfectly employs 180 Studios’ complex architecture, which plays an increasing role in the overall experience. Dark sloping ramps and large open-plan concrete spaces help amplify the installations – on both a visual and acoustic level. Some works, such as Musica Universalis, use combinations of light and architecture, creating constantly changing patterns in the surrounding space. Others, such as Our Time, rely on the concrete composition of their home to amplify their sonic presence, creating feelings of humility whilst enhancing immersion.
As you walk through the exhibition, placards provide a synopsis of the works, highlighting the collaborators of each project. As you pass each one, you can see familiar names such as bio-acoustician Bernie Krause and Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja. Instead of merely borrowing influences, UVA like to actively involve other creators from outside their collective. It’s an alternative take on the whole ‘artists borrow, genius’ steal’ concept. Admittedly, it’s easier to do when you have the repertoire of a 20-year career in the arts under your belt. Nevertheless, it creates an appeal and is what makes UVA interesting.
Overall, Synchronicity creates and overarching story of the interconnectivity of a world in constant collaboration and presents it in a way that is both humbling, exhilarating, and thought-provoking. In our interview, Matt spoke to us about exhibitions concept in more detail…
Could you explain the concept of Synchronicity?
Synchronicity is a solo show by UVA that marks our 20th anniversary as a practice. It’s not a retrospective but a survey-type show. We have been a part of two exhibitions at the 180 Strand in recent years, so when they asked us to come back and do another solo show, we wanted to make sure there were new things for the audience to experience.
Every work bar one is either new or hasn’t been presented in the UK before. It also includes several collaborative partnerships that we have historically established. Their backgrounds are wide-ranging, with people who work within disciplines outside of our practice – such as science, music, and dance – which intentionally highlights the collaborative nature of UVA.
The title Synchronicity refers to the term that the philosopher Karl Jung invented. We’re familiar with synchronization, and UVA has always been interested in synchronous activities where different disciplines come together to find new ways of communicating ideas. But Synchronicity is something slightly different. Karl Jung referred to Synchronicity as meaningful coincidences that seem to have no logical cause-and-effect relationship, implying a mysterious connection between the individual’s psyche and external events.
With this in mind, we liked the idea of taking scientific ideas and looking at them from an artistic perspective. Not everything in life can be quantified or empirically measured, such as beauty, art, and love. But there are parallels between the sciences and the arts. It’s about observing patterns, looking for synchronous information, and working with that material either as a means of expression or to confirm information.
How have you used this philosophy when planning the journey throughout the exhibition?
The exhibition space in 180 Studios is a very unusual one. It occupies the lower ground floors of a big building right in the centre of London. The building used to be office blocks, so the spaces where exhibitions are held are part of the building where the car parking spaces used to be. Because of this, it’s very unorthodox in terms of exhibition spaces. There are concrete pillars everywhere. One of the works is even on a ramp where cars would have driven down into the lower levels, so it’s fraught with challenges. There are changing ceiling heights, sound reverberation, and concrete columns to consider. However, because it is a post-industrial, utilitarian space, it’s got a specific character to it which can be worked with.
Some of the works are placed where they are because they fit into those spaces and wouldn’t work in others, but there was a kind of narrative too. We wanted to start by looking at patterns and informational noise that we create for ourselves on a human scale (Present Shock II), and then right at the end, we’re looking at the patterns we can observe in the cosmos (Musica Universalis).
There was also a consideration about how the works affect you emotionally and how they impact your senses. Some of the works are more meditative than others, and others are more aggressive and a bit intense.
What do you think these works say collectively that they don’t as individual pieces?
There is a performative aspect to the works that relates to the origins of UVA and raises questions about why we, as human beings, desire to make art.
Polyphony, Ensemble, Chromatic, and Musica Universalis all propose questions about the origins of music creation. Polyphony in particular is the second collaboration with bio acoustician Bernie Krause. His scientific practice is centred around observations of environmental health via their natural soundscapes.
It’s interesting because sound can inform us about the health of habitats in a way that visuals cannot. His work has revealed how different animal species give each other space to communicate. When viewing the sound through a spectrogram – a tool separating the different species into different frequencies – it looks like a musical score. It suggests a sort of undeniable that perhaps our ability to make music and how we structure it is a direct reference to nature.
Simultaneously, the Ensemble – an entirely different type of installation – was made in collaboration with choreographer Dana Gingras and based on the theory of theoretical neurobiologist Mark Changizi. Mark’s theory of harnessing proposes that our sense of musicality comes from the human body in motion.
Everything we do and our movements produce a rhythm, be it running, walking, throwing things, or, more recently, how we move our bodies relating to technology. Whether from the early stages of hunter-gatherer farming to moving our thumbs around a touchscreen, these different bodily movements have influenced how we express ourselves through music. It results in a work that’s part performance and part anthropological study. You can see these links between the various works in the show; they all overlap thematically.
Was this overlapping intentional?
Well, it’s due to the time we’ve been around and making work. It’s been about 20 years now, and through that time, these are themes that we’ve been interested in for many years. Only when you’re able to look back at these different lines of enquiry can you start to join the dots. It’s one of the positives of having a body of work to reflect on.
It takes a lot of time to learn about different subjects and develop them into works through collaboration; it would have been challenging to make this amount of work from scratch in the time that we had to make the exhibition. It takes years. If this was ten years ago, would this have been possible? Probably not. Only recently have we been able to reflect on the body of work in this way.
What do you think you have learned about yourself as an artist through the experience of producing this exhibition?
Good question. I started UVA with two co-founders who moved on many years ago, and I’ve had various teams. We’ve had many exhibitions, but this is the first time I’ve put all these works together in one place and viewed it as a body of work. Post-COVID, my team has gotten a lot smaller as opposed to growing through the years, so it’s been interesting addressing the challenges we have whilst putting together these different ideas in a way that tells a larger story. In the past, more commonly, it would be one work at a time and certainly nothing as ambitious as this current project.
The practice has been going on for 20 years. I would have been 28 when I started UVA, and I never would have dreamed that I would still be doing this at my age, so it’s an interesting point in time for me. Weirdly, whether through UVA or not, this feels like a new beginning to the next creative phase in my life. It never ends though; that’s what I’m realizing. The desire to continue creating is just as strong as it ever was, and that’s surprising to me. But it’s a good surprise.
I didn’t have a great education. I had a lot of issues around neurodiversity and learning in general, and I always found that it was far easier for me to learn through practice rather than traditional academic routes. In that respect, UVA has been my education because I’ve worked with people at the top of their fields. The most accomplished scientists, choreographers, musicians, and technicians, both internally and externally. I have been exposed first-hand to the incredible minds of people who have dedicated their lives to a specific practice and have been in the position to collaborate with these individuals to create something new. That’s been the best part of the whole journey. That’s not to say it’s all sunshine and rainbows.
Collaboration can be very challenging at times, but the desire to keep learning keeps you young and alive. You can tell from our body of work. There’s nothing that’s replicated too much. Yes, we show the same works in multiple places, but we aren’t just sitting on our laurels, repeating the same thing in a slightly different iteration. For some artists, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I’d find that incredibly dull.
After everything you have learned over the years, what advice can you give to the next generation?
Looking back, I remember I was at Campbell College of Arts in London and could never really decide what I wanted to do. I knew that visual arts were my strength because I was pretty rubbish at everything else. I did this kind of joint honours course where your study time was split between fine art and design subjects. I did graphic design, typography for one half of the week, and then fine art sculpture for the other half.
To pay for my education, I organized illegal raves in Peckham. It wasn’t cool and gentrified like it is now. Back then, nothing much was happening, so I threw big raves in archways and squats to try to make a bit of a scene.
What was the name of the party?
Oh, they were all sorts of names. The regular one I did was called Overdue or something terrible like that. That activity shaped my trajectory, though. At college, we were educated traditionally, you know. We would learn about 20th-century art, sculpture, design, and typography, and that was all very interesting don’t get me wrong, but I always found that the events I created under the archways were also educational. I would find an unusual architectural space, curate the music, design the sound system and lighting, and then watch people express themselves on the dance floor. It was different and exciting.
I remember watching these events from almost an anthropological point of view; how weird it was that orchestrating these elements would result in humans moving together in very unusual ways. I’m probably too old for that stuff now, but the point I’m trying to make is that type of creativity in subculture is a great way to try things out if you want to create experiential work. That ultimately led to the first projects we created as UVA, such as scenography and environments for performing artists like Massive Attack.
What’s next for United Visual Artists?
We already have several projects lined up for this year. We have a solo exhibition opening in Barcelona beginning in February, and we’re working with Massive Attack again on their forthcoming show set of shows this year.
There are also exhibitions in the pipeline that are more of a continuation of the current works. There’s never really been a master plan. It has all evolved organically, and we’ve been in a very fortunate position where we continue to get commissioned opportunities.
I’d also like to do more teaching and mentoring to help the next generation of artists develop their careers.
Synchronicity is running until the end of February 2024. Purchase tickets here.
