Gladiator (diptych)

Gladiator (diptych)

Gladiator
Hollington & Kyprianou

The British government’s head finance minister - known as the Chancellor of the Exchequer - performs a ritual before delivering his yearly financial statement to parliament. He leaves his official residence, Number 11, Downing Street with a red ‘budget box’ and displays it to the waiting press. The word ‘budget’ has its roots in the French ‘bougette’ or small bag, considered at one time sufficient to hold an individual’s wealth. These red governmental briefcases contain British ministerial papers and are lined with lead, once meant to ensure that the box sank when thrown overboard in the event of capture. The red ‘budget box’ was first used in 1860, by Britain’s then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Willliam Gladstone.

Hollington & Kyprianou’s Gladiator reworks the ritual as performed in 2011 by the ex-Chancellor George Osborne in an installation that combines digital compositing with a theatrical illusion that uses reflections in glass, a technique known as ‘Pepper’s Ghost’. Seen by many as the most right wing Chancellor in Brtisih history for his ideologically driven ‘austerity’ policies, it is perhaps fitting that digital smoke and actual mirrors are used to seperate and then reunite the performer from the symbolic container of the nations finances in a spectral embrace. On one screen, the ritual is reduced to just the box itself, coming across as a levitating parlour trick. On the second screen, the box is removed and the Chancellor is digitally filled in, refocussing on the Chancellor’s expressions and movements. His raised fist echoes both a Roman emperor about to decide the fate of a gladiator and a magician appearing a penny from his sleeve.