HeHe

When the Future was about Fracking

When The Future Was About Fracking, 2016

Centrespace in the Visual Research Centre, DJCAD, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee.

When the Future Was about Fracking is curated by Rob La Frenais in collaboration with Cooper Gallery DJCAD and is part of the Energy Ethics project, organised by Mette High of St Andrews University. This installation was originally commissioned by FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) and Arts Catalyst. Funded by Creative Scotland and the British Academy. Closing Event with artists Alec Finlay and HeHe

"When the Future Was about Fracking is a sequel, specially designed for Scotland, of the Paris-based artist group HeHe's Fracking Futures, which first took place in north-west England, also a contested site for hydraulic fracking.

The Guardian wrote at the time: 'It is one of the biggest, most polarising issues there is, but artists who have created an indoor fracking installation insist they are not trying to sway opinion either way. "We want to create an emotionally engaging experience. People can then go away and come to their own conclusions," said Heiko Hansen, who with his partner, Helen Evans, has recreated the sounds, tremors and flames you would get from a fracking operation.'

This time, the group re-enact a doomed landscape after extensive fracking, with leaking hissing ghostly wellheads, in the swirling mist of a post-apocalyptic abandoned excavation site, in the middle of a city centre, in Centrespace within DJCAD's Visual Research Centre located on the lower levels of the DCA. HeHe's often mischievous yet accurate miniaturisations of potential and actual global disasters have intrigued audiences worldwide, and this is the first time their work will be seen in Scotland."