Kevin Hunt

Kevin Hunt's practice has recently centred around researching how the art world has changed and adapted since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. He called this the 'Pandemic Programme', and gave us some examples of how art has been showcased in the past year. The University of Southampton hosted an online gallery event, which Kevin Hunt liked due to 'ease of access'. He played us an example of one of the pieces exhibited; a video by Sam Laughlin. This featured a wall being demolished, accompanied with classical music, which suited the overall mood well, since as each crescendo rose, the wrecking ball swung. An element of this online gallery which was different to a physical gallery, was the ability to skip, pause and speed-up the video. This, for both Hunt and me, is a negative, since you don't experience the full intentions of the artist, and it takes away any sense of immersion. I think if I were to host some sort of online art showcase, I would either remove or strongly advise the audience to not use this feature. Another way of getting around this, was exampled by another online forum, 'Gsamfa', which provided the viewer with an online access code, only available to use during a certain time frame. This helped to give a sense of real time, and encouraged the audience to focus on each piece, as they would in a normal art gallery.

Hunt seemed to be fully submerging himself into this new way of experiencing art, as he had a plethora of recommendations and examples of shows to visit. The most interesting one, to me, was artist, Suzie Green's show, "Club Goddess". This was live-streamed on the internet forum, Twitch, which is again another great way to make an online, digital show seem more realistic. There were multiple 'rooms', which the viewer could access, adding to the authenticity, allowing them to gain insight into the overall tone of the show. There seemed to be an erotic, sensual theme, and perhaps it being online made this easier; there wasn't any awkwardness, through accidental eye contact or hyper-awareness of surroundings, the viewer could simply just take it for what it was.

I really enjoyed Hunt's approach to his lecture; he didn't just talk endlessly

about himself and his work, but allowed us to engage as artists, and, as someone with more experience than us students, he gave us advice and helped us understand the modern art world, in which we are going in to. This was a really positive experience, and has definitely opened my eyes to all the things I could be doing right now, in order to both put myself out there, and to engage in other people's current practices. It has really made me think about how I can be presenting my art, to make it more accessible during Coronavirus times. From this, I have recently created a Youtube channel, where I use my digital art skills to create aesthetically-pleasing thumbnails and video edits. Additionally, I have also produced a mini-magazine, as these are such a simple yet effective way to allow people to purchase and interact with my art.