Marcus Coates

New Past: Contemporary Art from UK exhibition in Tashkent

Interview with Marcus Coates in which he talks about his relationship to birdsong, the digital processes behind Dawn Chorus and the relationship between the work and the space at Fabrica.

In this film we speak to British Artist Marcus Coates about his practice and specifically about his works held in the British Council Collection. A new series of photographs by Coates are on show in a major new exhibition titled; Private Utopia: Contemporary Art from the British Council Collection. For more information about Private Utopia visit: http://visualarts.britishcouncil.org/... and http://www.britishcouncil.jp/en/priva... Coates is best known for performative films and photographs in which the he inhabits the minds and bodies of animals of all types, exploring shamanic traditions and working to better understand...

Marcus Coates How does one make the best decision when unsure of how to navigate the unknowns? (Skylark song) 2016 HD digital video Duration 3 min 50 sec (MC0203) Visitors to the gallery were invited to ask the artist, Marcus Coates questions that preoccupied them and struggled to answer themselves. This film is his answer to one of these questions. Coates adopts the song strategy of a skylark bird, attempting not to repeat phrases, hesitate and sustain this sound making for as long as possible. In order to do this...

For this film, we went bird-watching with the artist Marcus Coates. His new video, The Plover’s Wing 2008, was on show at Tate Britain during the Tate Triennial, so it seemed apt. Coates knows a lot about birds, he can mimic their calls, interpret their behaviour and, he says, even converse with them… in the spirit world. For his art, he films himself entering a trance like state that he calls ‘becoming animal’, and attempts to solve people’s problems by seeking answers from the animal spirits that he encounters. In...