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How to wash your hands in molten metal (2014)
Allison Gibbs
16mm film. Colour, silent, looped. Transferred to HD
Running time 7 minutes 15 seconds
18 February – 10 March 2016

As part of the moving image programme for Ripples on the Pond, GoMA is delighted to present How to wash your hands in molten metal (2014) by Allison Gibbs, made whilst on residency at Hospitalfield Arts, Arbroath and for the exhibition Let The Body Be Electric, Let There Be Whistleblowers at Dan Gunn, Berlin (2014). Shown for the first time in digital format, this 16 mm film is based on her research in to the Italian monk and mathematician, Luca Pacioli (1145 -1517), sometimes known as the father of accounting following the publication of his work Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalita (Summary of arithmetic, geometry, proportions and proportionality)in 1494. In How to wash your hands in molten metal, Gibbs translates the financial information of her own bank accounts into hand gestures registered in Pacioli’s publication, those gestures also functioning as a visual allusion to the abacus.

Gibbs also references a more recently rediscovered publication of Pacioli’s, De viribus quantitatis (On the Powers of Numbers). This publication explores the connectedness of magic and mathematics and regarded as one of the oldest written texts on magic. How to wash your hands in molten metal refers to the title of one of Pacioli’s magic tricks in the section on puzzles and tricks.

This screening is courtesy of the artist and Modern Edinburgh Film School.

The artist would like to thank Simon Mills & Angus Accountancy Arbroath, Heidi Ballet, Lucy Byatt and Alex Hetherington.

Allison Gibbs (b.1978, Penrith) is an Australian artist who recently returned to Australia after living and working in Glasgow (2007 -15). She graduated with a Masters of Fine Art from The Glasgow School of Art in 2013, with an Erasmus exchange at The Piet Zwart Institute Rotterdam, NL. Recent exhibitions and screenings include fugue states (2015) a two person exhibition with the Lauren Gault at Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) Glasgow; Ripples on the Pond (GoMA, Glasgow) and MOTHS, Summerhall, Edinburgh, both for Modern Edinburgh Film School programmes in 2015; 5 Scripts for Future-telling, a performance for Tenletters, Glasgow (2015); the premiere screening of Our Extra-Sensory Selves for Glasgow Film Festival 2015 (Crossing the Line programme); Let The Body Be Electric, Let There Be Whistleblowers, (2014) an exhibition with Allison Gibbs, Ken Jacobs and Joachim Koester at Dan Gunn gallery Berlin, curated by Heidi Ballet and Anselm Franke; Ruins, (2014) a group exhibition in Yellowknife, Canada; an adaptation of the scripted film work Spirits of Ecstasy (Murnau’s Death Mask) for The Happy Hypocrite- Heat Island (issue 7 spring 2014 edited by Isla Leaver-Yap); Kelly, a collaborative exhibition with Jennifer Bailey, Tessa Lynch & Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir for Glasgow International 2014 and SPIRIT SHADOW SPECTRE BONES and PHANTOM (solo exhibition) at Intermedia, CCA Glasgow 2013.

Recent summer schools and residencies include: The Barbershop, Lisbon, Portugal; Triangle France, Marseilles, France; Hospitalfield Arts, Arbroath, Scotland; and Rupert Vilnius, Lithuania. In 2014 Gibbs was shortlisted for the LUX/Glasgow Film Festival Margaret Tait Award. Gibbs’ ongoing extra-sensory meeting group ‘A Development Circle for Radical Subjectivity’, has been held at Triangle France, Rupert Vilnius and CCA Glasgow. Forthcoming projects include a screening of SPIRIT SHADOW SPECTRE BONES and PHANTOM (2013) with a performative reading event at Inverleith House, Edinburgh and a new work for the fall edition of NEW WORLD UNLTD; a Portland OR, USA based journal of art, science fiction, the weird, the paranormal and the psychedelic, 2016.