you minus one
Philip Davenport
Manchester, UK 2007
You minus one is a portrait sequence of people who are both close and lost. Davenport plays with ideas of measuring this space and finding symbols for it: mythical references (Narcissus, Echo, Psyche, Demeter, Minerva) and the preoccupations of Romantic poetry are mistranslated into new jargons of psychotherapy, biology and mathematics.
This piece was premiered at Burnley Mid-Pennine Arts Gallery in August 2007, showing a few parts of the complete sequence.
Material from this series was shown as wall and floor texts, together with a
soundtrack by experimental musician Lee Patterson. This installation was part of
the exhibition L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E+S=C=I=E=N=C=E which also featured works by Shaun
Pickard, Hester Reeve, Carolyn Thomson, Tony Trehy.