Max Colson uses photography, found images, computer-generated graphics and animation create prints, films and installations that explore the social and political aspects of architecture. Combining several strands of research, including the advertising of exclusive developments, the technical aspects of high-end architecture and online commentaries related to Britishness, his work disrupts and problematises the inherent utopian approach to architecture.
Taking as its subject different perceptions of the British landscape, this short animated film is a roaming exploration of national identity and collective history set in post-Brexit Britain. Using a 3D model of the United Kingdom, a variety of animated scenarios are created, inspired directly from user comments found left in response to online videos and newspaper articles concerning the English and British countryside.
Appropriated advertising imagery, used to sell London’s new privatised urban public spaces and luxury residential developments has had its computer-generated elements - mainly architectural and landscape features - simplified down into simple colour gradients. The remaining choreography of stock photography highlights the idealised vision the developments are trying to sell. The titles in the series refer to marketing slogans promoting similar imagery in various other exclusive privatised, public spaces in London.
Construction Lines is a short animated film about the interior of an 'iceberg' home (a home where the sub-ground levels are larger than the house above). It shows this iceberg home rendered as a 3D model using the original architectural plans and architectural software. The iceberg home in question was not developed due to hundreds of objections from surrounding neighbours in Knightsbridge, West London. The narrative of the film and the scenes played out within it, are informed by the objections filed against the planning application.
2017 The Green and Pleasant Land, Arebyte, London, England
2015 Virtual Control: Security and the Urban Imagination, Royal Institute of British Architects, London, England
2018 SPACE Art and Technology Programme Outcome Exhibition, Space, London, UK
2017 Compilation Angst, KOE-05 Berlin, Germany
2017 A Place for You To Dream, Republic Gallery, London, UK
2016 BoTu: Back and Forth, Showroom MAMA, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2015 Data Rush, Noorderlicht Gallery, Groningen, Netherlands
2014 Brighton Photo Fringe OPEN14, Victoria Gardens & Regency Townhouse, Brighton, UK
2013 My Secret Life, C/O Berlin, Berlin, Germany
2018 Sheffield Doc Fest, Sheffield, England
2018 Hamburg International Short Film Festival, Hamburg, Germany
2018 Chicago Underground Film Festival, Chicago, USA
2018 Tilburg Architecture Film Festival, Tilburg, Netherlands
2017 Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York, UK
2017 Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2017 Architecture Film Festival London, London, UK
2017 Kassel Dokfest, Kassel, Germany
2017 Milano Film Festival, Milan, Italy
2018 SPACE Art and Technology residency, SPACE, London, UK
2017 Winner, Tenderflix/Tenderpixel Gallery Artist Video Prize
2017 Winner of the Fiction Short category, Architecture Film Festival, London, UK
2017 Arebyte residency programme, Arebyte Gallery, London, UK
2017 Longlisted (in the last 17), Jerwood/FVU Awards 2018
2016 Longlisted (in the last 20), Jerwood/FVU Awards 2017
2016 ‘Rookies MA’ residency programme, Showroom MAMA, Rotterdam
2015 Selected, Jerwood/Photoworks Portfolio Walk 2015
2015 Selected, Artquest Peer Forum Award Recipient
2015 Selected, Noorderlicht Photofestival 2015 Open Call
2014 Winner, Leverhulme Trust Artist in Residence Fellowship (£15,000 award)
2014 Selected, Brighton Photo Fringe OPEN14
2013 Selected, C/O Berlin’s My Secret Life international open competition
2013 Selected, Magenta Flash Forward Emerging Photographers competition