Gemma Syme

Unda Pressure (Naive Melody) (2011)

5 min 13 sec2 channel installation / Digital Video / Colour / Sound

"In Gemma Syme’s 'Naive Melody (Under Pressure)' the screen is split into two, the artist, headphones on singing along with the David Bowie and Freddy Mercury parts of 'Under Pressure' respectively before her webcam. The song’s hooky charm has always been the rhythmic musical containment of the singers’ overwrought and overdramatic stylings. They warble emotionally loaded phrases until they become abstracted blubber. In Syme’s ordinary, shaky voice the operatic takes on far more real, ordinary emotional implications. As if she might be a student on the verge of a pre-exam crash... painfully poignant to watch."

Mark Amery

Other works by Gemma Syme

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