That elements of Matthew Darbyshire's collaborative installation 'T Rooms' can feel sterile and soulless is a compliment rather than a criticism. In his social exploration of urban architecture and design, the artist has divided the gallery spaces using hoarding-size, vinyl panels, printed with generic, modernist architectural details, including a strong nod to Glasgow architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The impression is of the exterior facades of buildings. Devoid of any human presence these fake frontages are both blank and comfortingly familiar.
At the centre of the installation is a video with deadpan narration by writer Owen Hatherley which explores recent housing design in relation to our conflicting desires for what's both 'mass-produced and individualist, ultra-modern and traditional'. The video plays within a room-like setting, where Darbyshire has arranged objects which include art, ornament and high-street products. That they visually mirror each other – the plinth of an abstract sculpture echoes the shape and colour of a pair of imitation leather footstools, for example – is a clever illustration of the merging of all these ambiguous elements of art and design.
Modern stores may be full of stylish objects with which to furnish a smart new home, but what 'T Rooms' cleverly reminds us is that when it's already been selected and adapted to fit our social and economic demands, perhaps it isn't much of a choice at all.
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