Gair Dunlop

The pleasures and terrors of science, technology, change and daily life are at the heart of Gair Dunlop’s creative process. He works in text, photography and video, colliding categories of place, documentary and the imaginary. The works do not offer straightforward narratives but hint at the complexities of how we live within the remnants of a fantasy military/scientific pastoral nation.

Collaborations are a key factor in the work. The process of making involves building up long term relationships with publics, scientists, archivists and site-keepers. The collision of factual and fictional archive material with new footage has led to experimentation with multiscreen projection as well as single screen formats.

Collaborations with geographers, musicians, UKAEA archivists, with writer and broadcaster Ken Hollings, sound artists Zoe Irvine and Mark Vernon, and other artists are ongoing.

Previous work has involved photography and signage across Scotland, online work, and then from 2009 onwards an increasing interest in expanded video documentary.

Between 2003 and 2011, in collaboration with Dan Norton (ablab.org) he produced a series of online interactive works which explore the imaginaries and public memory of modernity. New Towns, ideas of the future as embedded in film archives, and the omnipotence of industrial control panels were explored within surreal interfaces where the path was deliberately unclear.

ablab + dunlop are once more working together.

Gair was born in Glasgow. His formative experiences have included 4 years as a projectionist at London’s Scala Cinema. He is a senior lecturer at DJCAD, Dundee.