Dinner Machine is an ongoing piece of hysterical fantasy storytelling that explores networks and ecologies of humans and non-humans within an impossibly large and complex castle.

Parodying the form of the ‘hero’s journey’, this chapter follows three knights and a zoologist as they go questing after a mythical beast. Far from the valiant heroes of childhood tales, these sheltered men retreat from challenging conditions into their insecurities; construct walls of words to defend themselves from one another. Their quest becomes interior and existential when they encounter consequences of their urban lifestyle that threaten their very being.

The work takes cues from visual novel videogames, presenting the dialogue as a sequence of animated text boxes. The paper puppet characters explore collaged video environments. Micro and macro scale footage is collapsed, distorted and layered to construct scenographic spaces that enhance the textural and sensory qualities of the world they navigate.

Exhibitions

In Spite of Bad Weather, Levinsky Gallery, University of Plymouth
1-11 July 2023
Community Programme Exhibition: The Bird and the Rhino, Harbour House, Kingsbridge
25 Jan - 22 Feb 2025