Plans for Home Conjuring Unit
Project description
Plans for Home Conjuring Unit is a digital artwork by Janice Kerbel (b. 1969, Toronto), whose interdisciplinary practice encompasses print, typography, audio, performance and light-based installation. Her work frequently explores visibility, invisibility and presence, examining the ways communication can reveal, conceal or defer meaning.
Commissioned as part of Slipstream, an experimental internet art project developed by Film and Video Umbrella, Plans for Home Conjuring Unit occupied the hidden spaces of the World Wide Web. Slipstream operated as an invisible layer within everyday internet traffic, embedding artworks within selected websites and using the constant flow of online activity as a vehicle for subtle disruption.
Kerbel’s contribution took the form of ephemeral digital interruptions that mimicked glitches and system errors. Rather than functioning as technical faults, these carefully constructed interventions introduced moments of uncertainty into the user’s online experience, suggesting the presence of an unseen intelligence or otherness within the technology.
The work deliberately unsettled the normal flow of browsing. Through unexpected visual and auditory interruptions, Kerbel created moments of disorientation and surprise, questioning assumptions about the reliability of digital systems and the apparently transparent nature of communication. The work occupies a space between visibility and invisibility, presence and absence, making the viewer conscious of the hidden structures underlying everyday digital experience.
Plans for Home Conjuring Unit reflects Kerbel’s wider interest in the mechanics of communication and the poetics of absence. Across her practice, performances, printed materials, installations, light works and audio pieces investigate the ways meaning can be conveyed, withheld or fragmented, often drawing attention to gaps, silences and incomplete forms of communication.
By placing an artwork within the normally invisible infrastructure of the internet, Kerbel transforms the digital environment itself into a site of artistic intervention. Plans for Home Conjuring Unit anticipates contemporary concerns with mediated experience, digital disruption and the uncertain relationship between technology, information and trust.
Bio
Janice Kerbel (b. 1969, Toronto) is a Canadian artist based in London whose interdisciplinary practice encompasses drawing, print, typography, performance, sound and installation. Her work explores systems of communication, visibility and absence, often using precise, diagrammatic or procedural forms to create situations in which meaning is deliberately withheld or made uncertain.
Kerbel was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2015 and was a finalist for the Sobey Art Award in 2006. Her work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including Tate Britain, Chisenhale Gallery, MoMA, New York, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe and the Liverpool Biennial.
Project details
Artist: Janice Kerbel
Work: Plans for Home Conjuring Unit
Programme: Slipstream
Commissioned and curated by: Film and Video Umbrella
Supported by: Arts Council England; Arts Council England East
Format: Digital artwork
Country: United Kingdom