This interactive installation was created in 2011 for Harrison’s first solo exhibition in London at Watermans Arts Centre, also named ‘A Brief History of Privatisation’.
It features six second-hand electronic massage chairs arranged in a circle, which are used to re-enact the history of UK public service policy over the last century.
Each chair represents a key service or industry: Health, Railways, Gas, Electricity, Telecoms and Post. They are illuminated by a neon-style display, which methodically scrolls through the dates of the last century (from 1900 – 2011), over the course of quarter of an hour. The colour of the neon changes depending on which political party is in power at that time, from blue to yellow to red and so on.
During this 15-minute cycle, the massage chairs automatically switch on at the dates in which their corresponding service or industry was taken into public ownership and switch off again at the date when/if they were privatised. Visitors are free to relax on the chairs at any point and experience this history viscerally, as well as conversing with others who may be sitting opposite.
Following the exhibition at Watermans, the installation toured to Inspace in Edinburgh as part of the group exhibition, Left to My Own Devices for Edinburgh Art Festival in August 2011. It then toured to Newcastle, where it became part of Harrison’s solo exhibition Market Forces at Vane for Wunderbar Festival 2011, which was introduced in a specially commissioned essay by writer and journalist Laurie Penny.
In both Edinburgh and Newcastle, Harrison collaborated with comedian Josie Long to create an alternative ‘tour’ of the installation which was made into a short film. Harrison was shortlisted for the 2011 Converse/Dazed Emerging Artists Award for this work. Since the end of 2011 the work has been in storage at Harrison’s studio and flat in Glasgow.
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