Brian Lobel has taken over the Brighton Dome Founders Room with Mourning Glory – a trilogy of technological explorations into love and loss.
The surface presentation of the room is stark and modern; the content deeply personal.
Echoes of strong, playful human relationships can be found in the precise layout of Purge – documentation of a performance where Lobel opened up the decision to delete Facebook friends to a jury of audience members. The responses he received from these friends are alternately warm and understanding, upset and insecure.
Or Else Your Friends Will Have To Do It is a surprisingly moving provocation to create the playlist for your own funeral. In a culture obsessed with the meticulous planning of weddings, this installation highlights the bloody-mindedness with which we ignore the inevitable and pass on a painful task to those who mourn us.
The juxtaposition of these two works is perfect; we are reminded of our strongest relationships as we imagine being forced to delete them by a jury of strangers – might you have to delete the person who would be choosing your funeral playlist? How do wounds inflicted online resonate in the real world?
A simple and extremely evocative installation.
Brian will be doing a live Purge as part of the Festival programme on Sunday, May 18, in Brighton Dome Studio Theatre, from 8.30pm, tickets £10 from 01273 709709
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