There is something sinister afoot at the Lazarides Rathbone gallery - any misbehaving, and it’s straight to an encounter with ’The Naughty Chair’. Part sculpture, part film, and part interactive experience, the solo exhibition by film installation artist Doug Foster features a steel chair with a hypnotic accompanying ’Brainwasher’ film (watch it above), as well as more stereoscopic and high-definition screen works.
With ’The Naughty Chair’, Foster explores his fascination with the human psyche, specifically, with the human visual system and how it can be fooled by optical illusion. Inspired by mind control programmes that ran secretly by the CIA during the Cold War, the chair ’forces’ the occupant to engage with the unstoppable ’Brainwasher’ cycle.
Watch the ’Heretics’ Gate’ video by Doug Foster
It’s apparent that all the works in this digital art exhibition carry the same aspiration for the emotional engagement of the viewer - take for instance Foster’s fired up ’Heretics’ Gate’, the purgatory-heavy video installation that first caught our eye last year at the Hell’s Half Acre exhibition held in the tunnels beneath London’s Waterloo station.
Set within the Lazarides’ Georgian townhouse interior, Foster’s pieces have worked to transform the gallery’s two floors into a stark, clinical setting. The effect is unnerving, but strangely engrossing at the same time.
Detailed installation view of Doug Foster’s ’In The Naughty Chair’ exhibition
Courtesy of the artist and Lazarides Gallery
