Jimmy Cauty: The Aftermath Dislocation Principle (ADP)

AdpRiotTour 2016
at CRATE in association with SPACE
Queens Yard
27 - 30 June 2016

On pilgrimage to 40+ sites of historic civil unrest across the UK

Housed in a 40 ft shipping container, The Aftermath Dislocation Principle (ADP) is a monumental post-riot landscape in miniature. This dystopian model village is set somewhere in Bedfordshire, where only the police and media teams remain in an otherwise deserted, wrecked and dislocated land – all in 1:87 scale and viewed through peepholes in the side of the container.

The origins of this piece lie in a series of works known as A Riot in a Jam Jar (L-13, 2011). Here Cauty constructed tiny scenes of a riotous nature inside upturned jam jars in which violence, humour and socio-political commentary vied for position in contained and domesticated bite-size portions. Likewise, The ADP in a Shipping Container plays out its viewing requirements according to the nature of its construction – not this time for mantelpieces, display cases and gallery plinths but as a totally self-contained off-grid artwork that can go anywhere, to be where it is needed, to seek its audience. The ADP tour explicitly draws on the iconography of the travelling show, the spectacular attraction or the hit and run event, and plays that off against the transient violence and upheaval of civil disorder followed by its aftermath ... always moving on, powering across the country on a 30-tonne haulage truck, in parody of the alleged contagion and momentum of riotousness itself.

The concept of the tour evolved during the development of the work, reflecting the meanings inherent in both its form and content. When it was realised that the model was best viewed through peepholes, it became apparent that it should be enclosed. When it was clear that it would fit neatly inside a 40 ft shipping container, it became obvious that the work should travel ... but to where? Although not explicit, its relationship to A Riot in a Jam Jar suggeststhat the ADP’s ruined landscape is the result of some kind of mass riot:

“… the proffered narrative telling us about an undefined upheaval, a riot with no articulated catalyst and an odd outcome. The only people left populating the dystopian ruin are the police – the rioters nowhere to be seen. In the absence of civilians to perform disobedience it falls to the constabulary. They paint graffiti, or scratch their heads”.

Augustin Macellari, Crack Magazine, 10.03.2016