Bloc Billboard: Elliot Clark & Chris Woodvine

15 November 2021 - 15 February 2022

Free & Open to All

We are very excited to present Vital Nothing Rocks, a collaborative effort between artists Elliot Clark and Chris Woodvine for our final Bloc Billboard commission of 2021.

‘Where does the absurd live in the everyday? How might we dissect what anyone is actually saying?’ These are the key questions that Elliot and Chris are asking. Together, they have been devising scripted conversations in nonsensical, non-linear ways. Like overhearing a conversation that emerges out of / recedes into the background, the artists’ words tease out images that disappear as soon as they flit into view.

For a week before the launch of Vital Nothing Rocks, Elliot and Chris will transform the billboard into a table around which they will have discussions to make the work: flipping it horizontally, it becomes a gathering place for art, talk and socialising. The results of their ‘table-time’ will then be displayed on the billboard.

The project name comes from a geocoding system called What3words, in which every three metre square of the world is fixed with three words; Vital Nothing Rocks corresponds roughly to the billboard’s location in Sheffield city centre (accounting for a typo that changes it from ‘Noting’ to ‘Nothing’). In a similar spirit of randomising language, the artists have been honing a peculiar style of writing that brings together their interests in technology, speech and the social interactions that form the bases of contemporary life.

Elliot Clark is an artist, curator and writer based in Sheffield with a practice that explores social interaction through participatory live experiences, nonsensical writings and accessibly curated exhibitions. His current interests include the dynamics of conversation and the significance of space in social circumstances. 

Chris Woodvine’s multimedia practice often combines readymade material, video, drawing, painting, sound and writing to investigate the power and mechanics of language. His work is concerned with acts of condensing, summarizing, subtracting and how they are associated with the digitised global flow of objects, information and people. Chris is currently based in Sheffield.