Phoenix City 2021 (Reprise)
Duncan Whitley, Phoenix City 2021, Production Still, 2020
Duncan Whitley is a Coventry based artist who, since 2018, has been undertaking the Coventry Biennial Artist-in-Residence programme at Coventry University’s School of Media and Performing Arts.
We commissioned him to produce a moving image work entitled Phoenix City 2021. The film proposes that, in the collective imagination of Coventry’s citizens, UK City of Culture 2021 is the most recent iteration of this idea. This artwork is currently installed at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum as a part of the HYPER-POSSIBLE exhibition.
Phoenix City 2021 (Reprise) is a new adaptation of this artwork with stereo soundtrack, reconfigured from the 24-minute gallery work.
The piece features remixes of the movements from Mozart’s Requiem in D minor featured in the original gallery work, and original compositions by Abul Mogard reworked from earlier drafts and compositional parts for the Phoenix City project.
Phoenix City 2021 (Reprise) was supported by Coventry University and University of Warwick through a Coventry Creates commission, for which Duncan worked with artist and researcher Mel Jordan of Partisan Social Club and Coventry University Centre for Postdigital Culture.
Read more about their exchange Art and the Urban Commons here
by Ryan Hughes