David Shrigley
British artist David Shrigley is best known for his iconic cartoonish drawings of childlike imagery such as animals, food or toys drawn in vibrant colour, combined with deadpan text fragments from overheard conversations or Freudian slips. His work taps into the quick and punchy spirit of contemporary visual culture, gaining him an audience far beyond merely the commercial art world. Shrigley also works in other media such as sculpture, installation, animation, photography, tattoos and music. He constantly challenges boundaries between high and low art through his signature, subversive humour and clever combinations of text and image.
Light Switch is a short digital animation exhibited in a continuous loop. It is projected directly onto the gallery wall by a projector mounted on a tall white plinth. Covered by a Perspex box and standing approximately a metre from the wall, the projector imposes a significant sculptural presence that the viewer cannot avoid being aware of while watching the animation. This is projected at approximate shoulder level. It is based on a drawing of a light switch set just above and to the right of centre in a white rectangular space (the screen).
During the course of nearly a minute and a half, a left hand with its index finger outstretched moves from the lower left corner of the screen to the switch and back again repeatedly. Each time it presses on the switch, the screen goes black, becoming white again as the finger comes off the switch. It does this at irregular intervals, sometimes slowly and meditatively, at other times more frenetically, causing rapid flashing and a flurry of clicks. Occasionally the hand retreats to the bottom left corner and flexes its long finger a few times before returning to hover back and forth in the space around the square mount that surrounds the switch. At one point it retreats, disappearing entirely from the screen.