About

Carol Whitehouse

Lives and works in and around London, UK.

Completed her BA in Fine Art Mixed Media and MRes in Creative Practice at the University of Westminster.

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, the threat of nuclear war was ever present. It was the era of the 4-minute warning and the government information pamphlet Protect and Survive (1980). Reading Louise Lawrence’s dystopian novel Children of the Dust (1985) which chronicled three generations of post nuclear war survivors, kicked off a fascination with dystopian and speculative fiction.

Utopian and dystopian imaginings continually shift to reflect society’s current day hopes and fears. From the traditional utopian dome to the more contemporary impact of technology on our lives, the work draws on these multifarious potential futures to ask ‘what-if’ and challenge our expectations.

The world revolves around people, society and their socio-political systems. Fundamentally, human nature and the human condition drive our aspirations and our fears. Our relationship with technology plays a crucial role in these visions of the future, either as a means to an end or in a nostalgic bid to return to a pre-industrial world. Fictional dystopian futures often expose the impact of technology on our lives. Sometimes it is portrayed as a direct technological threat, such is the case with Artificial Intelligence or Hyper Surveillance Societies, other times technology’s influence is illustrated indirectly, for instance with the impact of Climate Change on the natural world.

Technology’s impact is often a double-edged sword: bringing benefits but also risks and costs. Similarly, dystopia is the flip side to utopia. These concepts are all interrelated and contain within them ambiguity, double meanings, dichotomies and layers of complexity. Carol is fascinated by these contradictions and their ofttimes paradoxically sublime outcomes. This is what she wishes to represent through her work.

Carol considers Installation Art, which combines multiple mediums, to be the most effective way to evoke the emotions and questions that these themes raise regarding the present and the future. She works with a range of materials and mediums, combining physical objects with projected images and sounds to create an atmospheric experience for the viewer. The immersive nature of her installations hopes to connect with the viewer on an emotional level.

The installations are strangely mindful. By simultaneously instilling a meditative state whilst maintaining a background feeling of unease, the poetics of dystopia become compelling to watch. The playful nature of the work serves to enhance their appeal, allowing the viewer time to consider the emotional contradictions we are faced with in the constant search for balance.

Carol’s work is inspired by personal experiences, chance encounters and academic research. Blurred Life considers the effects of the ‘always on’ society and how individuals attempt to adapt to the constant societal pressure to be connected. In Crossing Over, the uncanny nature of a sole remaining emoji party balloon became the focal motif to express the confusion between the real and virtual worlds we now inhabit. The use of Utopia as a critical tool was the foundation of Paraplace, the geodesic dome conjures up utopian visions of future worlds and alternative living, but its design rests on the possibility of a dystopian event.

In a world of accelerated technological change and growing political and environmental uncertainty, these experiments with multiple medias are part of a continuing search for an audio-visual language that will suitably express the contradictory feelings of melancholy and foreboding with light and hope for the future.