A Truancy Of Vision II (triptych), 2025
Documentation of a phantom installation of work that never got to be exhibited or shown to the public in this configuration, existing somewhere (or nowhere) in a state of limbo. Installed & documented at The Stables, Port Sunlight, Wirral.
Transparent Perspex acrylic tubes, clear PVC film, clear packing tape. Lightbox containing a Xerox print, a cut-out Xerox print, adorning a hole in the wall. Both printed on paper and depicting the anatomy of an Eskimo’s brain (Kishu’s Cerebrum Dorsal aspect). Dimensions variable.
A Truancy Of Vision I (diptych), 2025
Documentation. Installation and detail views from The Right Map: Unstable Series, Holes, part of Ghost Art School X Independents Biennial 2025, The Stables, Port Sunlight Village, Wirral.
Transparent acrylic tubes, clear pvc film, clear packing tape, discarded and appropriated fluorescent light tubes (last image). Each pair: 205cm x 5cm; 210cm x 5cm.; lights: 120cm x 2.5cm each.
A Dislocation Occurring, 2024
Documentation. Installation and detail views. Open Studios, The Royal Standard, Liverpool, showcasing studio members works in progress.
Domestic pipes, conduit fittings and components, casts in plaster, silver and gold mylar fragments, clear tape, dust. Dimensions variable
Pull The Other One, 2024
Documentation. Installation views and video still details, from The End Of Glory, co-curated by Rory Macbeth & Doug Bowen, Ghost Art School X Blip Blip Blip Gallery. Winzavod Centre for Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia.
Single channel performance film. Performers, white coverall’s, chair, rope. In collaboration with Gary Finnegan.
Post Factum, 2023
As part of the Biennial ‘23 programme, coinciding with Liverpool Biennial 2023, The Royal Standard presents ‘Post Factum’, a show that revisits and re-imagines recent body’s of work of two artists, playing with the notion of a retrospective. Sculpture appears here as artefact, in their new iterations, bolstering the film and sound arrangements.
Post Factum: An exhibition by Cos Ahmet & Gary Finnegan, part of Biennial 23, The Royal Standard, Liverpool. Installation view. Lightbox, objects, film, sound, sculptural perspex screens, drapes, scaffold sheeting. Dimensions variable.
C changed to S (Instruments), 2022 - 23
The title, alludes to the origins of clear tape — and a material that Ahmet returns to frequently. Originally manufactured in 1937 by the duo Kinninmonth and Gray, its name was derived from cellophane; before the "C" changed to "S", so that the new name could become trademarked as the generically named product synonymous to our everyday lives.
Passive in its display, these limb-like instruments are not unlike the diagrams that indicate the molecular structures of ‘acrylates’ — polymers such as acrylic acid, used to initiate the distinctive adhesive nature of clear tape.
Documentation. Studio installation and detail views. Clear tape and pvc film, clear acrylic case, white fabric. Dimensions, case: 120cm x 45cm x 30cm approx; space: 200cm x 200 cm x 200cm, approx
Proposition (a duet), 2022 -23
Ahmet’s performances to camera often occur in a studio setting, and are spontaneous, ephemeral and improvised in nature. The artist will sometimes omit the presence of his own body from playing out these gestures, instead appointing another to stand in for him. Crucially, documentation of this nature exists as the residual evidence of art that is ‘caught in the act’, with the potential for public display, yet troubles the balance between document and art object.
The exhibition DOCUMENTS, examines video works alongside photography that document an action performed for the camera rather than to a live audience or gallery setting. Proposition (a duet), is a work that fits into this narrative, and subsequently featured in the exhibition. This performance consists of a choreographic object conspiring with the body to enact sculptural gestures.
Single channel performative film. Installation detail view. Screened in DOCUMENTS, curated by Jon Carritt, Gallery DODO, Brighton, 2023
A Light Pinkish Brown, 2023
In his ongoing studies of body and material, with skin playing the lead role in particular, this performance video sees Ahmet exposing his own body surface, placing it within the familiar backdrop of non-human materials that appear in his practice, featured here as peripheral membranes, posing as integuments.
Captured within a set of mirrors, both the human and the non-human facades manifest the choreographic space; they are reflected back as a blend of veneers in this juncture.
The title itself, is procured of miscellaneous attempts to describe the colour and tone of both flesh and skin, evocative of hexadecimal colour coding systems, that cautiously endeavour to bear the modest likeness to human skin.
Single channel performance film. Performer, material space, mirrors, sound.
Neither Parallel Nor At Right Angles, 2022
As part of the exhibition ‘CLEARANCE’, staged in the former Liverpool department store ‘Lewis’s’, the artists Cos Ahmet & Gary Finnegan (both LSAD Alumni), worked in collaboration to create a film and sound installation, shown alongside other graduates & Alumni of the MA Fine Art programme, at John Moores, Liverpool School of Art & Design.
Incorporating various newspaper article pages that cover the windows of this former department store, the space is submerged in a half-light, that simultaneously illuminates the panels like stained glass in a pseudo-catherdral setting. The moving images that occupy the space are mirrored in the reflections from its metal floors, making this a fully immersive film and sound experience.
Video documentation. Three channel film & sound installation. In collaboration with Gary Finnegan. Part of the LSAD Alumni group exhibition ‘CLEARANCE’, The Lewis’s Building (a former dept. store), Liverpool.
They Say That Everyone Has To Start Somewhere, 2022
For the artists, Cos Ahmet & Gary Finnegan, their film and sound installation at The Royal Standard, places a demand on the moving image, questioning the conventions of staging.
In contrast to the generic display of moving images and video works, typically projected on gallery walls or large screens, the artists consider the ‘video screen’ in particular, as sculpture, steering bodies and gazes not only through a space, but through a sculpture that houses a moving image, blurring the boundaries between the work and the viewer.
They Say That Everyone Has To Start Somewhere: An Exhibition by Cos Ahmet & Gary Finnegan, The Royal Standard, Liverpool. Five channel film and sound nstallation, drapes, scaffolding structure. Dimensions variable.
500, 1000, 1000, unknown, n.a, 3000, 4000, unlimited, 500, n.a, n.a, n.a, n.a, n.a, n.a, 2022
Appropriating Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt’s ‘Oblique Strategies’ as a site of departure for this video sculpture, for each of the 10 iterations, cards were picked at random and used to produce a moving image of any length or content from the dilemma presented on the card. The title of the piece, alludes to and makes a direct reference to publication history attached to the Oblique Strategies series, compiled from its first publication date in 1975 right up to the present day. The spontaneous nature of this deck of cards and the work produced for this project is echoed in the construction of this video sculpture.
Installation view. Single channel film & sound installation. In collaboration with Gary Finnegan. Presented as part of the group show, ‘This Is Not A Test’ Master Graduate Residency Award, Static Complex, Liverpool.
EH-pih-DER-mis, 2021
The publication Enzyme 2: Life Systems (2021) is the collaborative project by artists Jorgge Menna Barreto & Joélson Buggilla, as a periodical, that also functions as a durational artwork. Enzyme 1: page, table & earth (2020) launched at the Jan van Eyck Academie, in The Netherlands.
Thinking of the periodical as part of an intellectual set of works of digestion, the artists proposed a second issue as their project for the Liverpool Biennial 2021: The Stomach & The Port, inviting curator, Sarah Kristin Happersberger, to join them as co-editor. The artists, Cos Ahmet, Abbie Bradshaw, Bonnie Ora Sherk, Linda Jane James & Newton Harrison worked on creating their own biome for this publication.
‘EH-pih-DER-mis’ (skin biome detail). Printed image on translucent paper vellum. Enzyme 2: Life Systems. A collaboration with Jorgge Menna Barreto and Joélson Buggilla, Liverpool Biennial 2021
Your Normal Surface Is Not Available, 2021
Ahmet’s interest in disappearing or rather, merging into his work via his body-material interventions, with skin; both human and non-human, a constituent part in recent solo and collaborative works, is also a theme in this work. Slowly he merges, virtually disappearing into his surroundings, where this juncture of human and non-human skins, homogenise.
Part inspired by a live performance lecture given by the artist Donna Kukama - where her physical body is removed, existing in-between presence and invisibility, Ahmet’s performance video sees him being covered in small shards of survival blanket material, turning this reflective matter into a form of visual masking, in an attempt to replace his own skin with that of another.
Single channel film, audio, performer, silver mylar, vision dome. Video stills & installation views, X Gallery, Liverpool School of Art.
A Meniscus (Between), 2021
‘A Meniscus (Between)’ consists of two live video performances, focusing on our haptic tendencies and instincts for touch - a meeting point of one skin and another, and how the limitation of an action makes us question how we behave through our own skin. With much of Ahmet’s repertoire consisting of materials that act as these secondary skins, and benefits here as a choreographic space, serving as a place where these everyday gestures, or ‘haptic nuances’, as Ahmet calls them, can exist.
Here, the use of ‘meniscus’ stands for a place that exists between the video performance’s split screen, but also, between the performers and the materiality of the choreographic object, allowing Ahmet to locate the viewer within the ‘in-between’ that occupies the work’s inside and outside interstices.
Two channel performance film, inverted audio. Performers: Abbie Bradshaw, Joshua Cook, Cos Ahmet. Installation and detail views. MA Fine Art Degree Show, Atrium Gallery (LSAD), Liverpool
Transmitting, 2021
‘Transmitting’ is a culmination of three performances, in three locations, blending movement and the duality of bodies, shadows, sound and visuals, as these two protagonists travel through portals of space. The title refers to the various connections that transferred via the combined practices of artists, Cos Ahmet & Gary Finnegan’s first collaborative work.
Part choreographed, part improvised, bodies and shadows intermingle displaying a sense of appearing and disappearing, becoming part of the projection, taking on the nature of other bodies or entities. The sequence of movements and gestures within this triptych, transpired out of the specificity to the situations, locations and the artists responses to these times and spaces.
Single channel film & sound. Performed and filmed by Cos Ahmet & Gary Finnegan. Sound composed by Gary Finnegan. Film edited by Cos Ahmet. Screening at Masters Graduate Showcase, LSAD
Curious Being (triptych), 2020
Created at the end of the first lockdown, ‘Curious Being’ realises this preoccupation that Ahmet has in concern with disappearing into his material objects, thus becoming the ‘operator’ of these objects.
Examining the erasure of the human subject, this work focuses on how the body could disappear, potentially becoming the mechanism for creating a new type of being, and follows his enquiries into body-material interventions, asking, ‘when does a body stop being (a body), and become the material’.
The object - choreographic in its nature, and made from survival blanket material, is loaded with its own connotations of protection, which drew Ahmet in fabricating something that would contain him, and all at once, change his entire being.
Single channel film. Performer, choreographic object. Performed by Cos Ahmet. Installation views of screening at Output Video Open, 2021, selected by Gabrielle de la Puente, curated by Michael Lacey, Output Gallery, Liverpool
Crushing Fractal Being, 2020
Crushing Fractal Being is an explorative performance piece, working with a new material. The feeling for, and getting a sense of a material in your hands and being part of that material, is something that Ahmet is very familiar with.
In the course of making this work, Ahmet had started reading the somatic poetry of CAConrad, inspiring the audio for this short video piece, his interpretation of a somatic poem, conveying what the material declared, resulting in this audio epigram:
‘celluloid. crushing fractal being, squeezing the depth. be every, fill something. are you now the music?’
Single channel performative film. Choreographic material (silver mylar), performer, somatic poem
Sensing The In-Between, 2020
Ahmet’s first choreographic object work is realised in ‘Sensing The In-Between’ - a collaboration with fellow artist Abbie Bradshaw. The work makes reference to and transpires from the piece ‘Plastisch’ (1969) by the artist Franz Erhard Walther. Ahmet’s rendition is made from clear tape, shaped into wearable shrouds that fit over bodies, attached via a walkway.
Gestures, movement, touch and space are explored as the bodies meet in the middle or the ‘in-between’, attached, yet separate in body or domain, where the sense of ‘self’ is put on hold. These enactments give the object a certain charge — possessing a life before and after the act, in a condition the artist expresses as a ‘pre-post-performance-prop’.
Live performance, Atrium Gallery, 2020. Performed by Abbie Bradshaw & Cos Ahmet. Footage courtesy: Dr. Imogen Stidworthy. Documentation and stills of the choreographic object ( in both pre-performance and post-performance states), clear tape and pvc film. 700cm x 175cm x 70cm
The Presence of Relics, 2020
In the second iteration of vol.one.vol.two, a bodily presence has been dismantled and re-packed ready for its next phase - the body and box becoming one, reilquarised like ‘philatory’, parading their saintly relics. In this ‘re-packed’ state, the skin-cases stand in as the body, containing its dismantled parts, concealed and obscured within these ‘other skins’.
With the body now disappearing, almost indistinct of shape or form, this new semblance of body exists, morphing into a type of mass. Where ‘To Disperse Is To Cause’ was clearly an unpacked body, with its containers discarded as obsolete, these new works are a reversed situation, that pack and send the body on its way.
Installation detail view of vol.one.vol.two. (group show, second iteration), Exhibition Research Lab, Liverpool. Clear tape and pvc film. Relic I & II: 92cm x 64cm x 20 cm; 58cm x 43.5cm x 40cm. Relic III: 100cm x 64cm x 20cm
To Disperse Is To Cause, 2020
In the first iteration for the exhibition vol.one.vol.two, Ahmet has started questioning ‘what it is to be a body now’ - directly quoting the artist Kira O’Reilly’s own practice and preoccupations concerning the body.
This piece replicates a former work — ‘Instructions For A Body’, similar in its aesthetic and construction, presented as a phantom impression of itself – made entirely from clear tape, it is as if it has shed its skin, leaving its remains scattered and discarded.
The presence of the box structures, like packaging from a modular framework are flung to one side, its contents laid out on the floor to make sense of its desired construction, pointing back to Ahmet’s preoccupation with the body serving as a system.
Installation (detail view). vol.one.vol.two. (group show, first iteration), Exhibition Research Lab, Liverpool. Dimensions variable.
Instructions For A Body, 2019
In this piece, the body has experienced a certain dislocation. Casts made from plaster and bandage contribute to our associations with repair, fixing of fractures, while imitating skin flayed from its host. Domestic pipe and conduit components paraphrase the body, aptly named after body parts - elbow, coupling sleeve, male adapter and so on.
Various components have been organised into a familiar bodily arrangement, delicately placed inside a lined container, with others laid out on the ground in 'kit-form', or like remains from an archaeological dig, all indicating to the product of a bodily structure or system.
Installation views, in ‘another untitled show’, MAKE. North Docks, Liverpool. Wooden container, metal brackets, insulation fleece, carpet, plaster, domestic pipes, conduit fittings. 210cm x 111cm x 26cm
