Pillars of Hercules

James Brooks 2014

Utilising the readily available ‘general enquiry’ telephone numbers of European Union embassies based in London, Brooks has fictitiously constructed 10 telephone call logs as A4 printed sheets, where the various embassies have been recorded hypothetically conversing with each other. However, the original telephone numbers are further complicated via a simple, repetitive, numerical strategy – duplicating each numeral a self-referential amount of times. This repetition is intended to aesthetically encourage the reference to the modular construction of ancient architectural columns – and in turn historic notions of: administration, stability, democracy and the civic order underpinning European society.

Materials

Framed A4 prints

Exhibition

Data as Culture 2014
March 2014 – February 2015 at the Open Data Institute

Data Types

Open, Retrieved, State, Static

About the Artist

James Brooks’ practice utilises data sources of varying cultural status as starting points to make work in the mediums of: drawing, painting, printmaking and sound. Implementing modernist and system-based art strategies, Brooks realises esoteric visual solutions…
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