Glistening skyscrapers loom over a serene Welsh lake while a monotone voice tells surreal tales about how this gleaming metropolis got plonked in the Valleys. Architects, builders, engineers: for some reason, they all conspired to build this city, right here.
Welsh artist Bedwyr Williams’s calming video – where nothing changes but the weather and light – isn’t cynical in order to undermine some grand idea of advanced modernisation or the loss of our natural spaces. Instead, this feels more like knowing mockery of arrogant ambition, of rich bozos who think they can transform places, of CEOs, hipsters, creatives, self-important numpties who dream of living in the Barbican.
The second video is a perfect moonlit recreation of a Roman Legionary Baths in Colchester with Williams reading banal crap from the local newspaper as if it’s an Arthurian epic. It’s ridiculous, silly, funny.
In all it’s sneering mockery, this feels like work by someone stood on the outside looking in, arms folded, shaking their head and calling everyone a twat. And seeing the world around us, who can blame him.
