The Ancient Set

2008
Claydon, Steven
Steven Claydon's film The Ancient Set takes found images of people dressing up as Greeks and Romans, overlaid with a soundtrack Claydon created by feeding a score using replica Roman instruments through the GarageBand computer programme. Claydon repeatedly turns to the notion of the Classical model as the 'backbone of Modern European idea of culture and art', bastardised through the successive misreadings of the Renaissance to the Victorian eras. The starting point for the work was an awareness of the way Classical culture is invoked to confer gravitas on contemporary society: 'This idea that we have in modern society, where we find it necessary to create a link between a bucolic or traditional past and a technological sophisticated present and try to wrap that up as a holistic nasty package like off-cuts from the butchers, is an odd belief'. Caroline Douglas 2009
  • Artwork Details: running time: 7 minutes 56seconds
  • Edition: 1 of 6
  • Material description: DVD
  • Credit line: © the artist
  • Theme:
  • Medium: Film and Audio Visual
  • Accession number: ACC33/2008

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The Arts Council Collection is the UK's most widely seen collection of modern and contemporary art.

With more than 8,000 works by over 2,000 artists, it can be seen in exhibitions and public displays across the country and beyond. This website offers unprecedented access to the Collection, and information about each work can be found on this site.