About

Rod Dickinson (born 1965) is an artist and lecturer at the University of West England, Bristol. Much of his research centers on re-enactment and the investigation of social structures. His work Greenwich Degree Zero (made together with Tom McCarthy) was shown in the exhibition The Art of Iconoclasm (part of BAK’s project The Return of Religion and Other Myths, 2008–2009) and was previously exhibited in the following exhibitions (selection): History Will Repeat Itself – Strategies of Re-enactment in Contemporary Art, Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund, 2007, Kunst Werke, Berlin, 2007–2008, and Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, 2008; Greenwich Degree Zero, Beaconsfield Gallery, London, 2006; and The Western Front Gallery, Vancouver,

1. His other recent exhibitions include: The Institute of Psychoplasmics, Pump House Gallery, London, 2008 and Prophets of Deceit, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, 2007. Dickinson lives and works in London.

During his residency, Rod Dickinson worked on the installation of Greenwich Degree Zero for the exhibition The Art of Iconoclasm. In addition, he gave a number of presentations and lectures on re-enactment at Dutch art academies and universities (including Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam; Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht; and Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen). Dickinson also developed a script together with writer Steve Rushton for the artwork Media Burn, a live performance and document of video and stills. The project consists of staging a press conference using a script composed of fragments of presidential-style press conferences and military briefings from around the world, spanning the last thirty years. The script focuses on the use of language to neutralize acts of state sanctioned violence. During a public seminar at BAK in November, organized by Dickinson, Steve Rushton, and Michael Uwemedimo, he staged a first rehearsal of the work with two actors.