Mark Brown THE SCOTSMAN 15th February 2002 www.thescotsman.co.uk

in Glasgow ... New York « 'The avalanche thoughts of the opening night production of the New Territories live-art festival are, suggest artists Andrew Poppy and Julia Bardsley, those dangerous cognitive moments that beckon disaster. However, this most defiant of events begins with an act of characteristic subversion of expectations. Before the audience enters the performance space, we are met with an exhibition of exquisite objects combining the motifs of books and shoes. Enveloped in an understated sound installation, the work is reminiscent of Rachel Whiteread's sculpture in its intelligent combination of attractive simplicity and implied profundity. The mixed-media performance work itself shares the exhibition's artistic predilections. A pair of whitened shoes, a chair, and a set of footprints sit in three white squares at the front of the stage. Their simple elegance acts as a premonition of the piece to come. A disembodied male voice speaks with deliberation about the battered chair by which he finds his existentialist bearings. It is as if this modest seat is of as much importance to him as the sad tree in Beckett's Waiting for Godot is to Vladimir and Estragon. As the voice gives way to the subtle spectacle of Poppy and Bardsley's projected moving images, we find ourselves in a disquietingly enchanted space akin to Derek Jarman's remarkable film, Blue. The video work, full of blues and whites, is deeply elemental, suggestive of gently blinding snow or a threat of drowning. The accompanying soundtrack is similarly beautiful-yet-distant. Shifting like the tide, the piece finally opens up to Tania Chen's illusory piano playing. Her modernist tune, by turns melodic and discordant, becomes entwined with secular incantations, intonations of passion and of danger. In spite of the "thoughts" of its title, this is essentially a sensory experience. It's not so much an avalanche as a gentle slide down a slight incline. But none the less a beautiful one.'