Lees Rooney: High Voltage Acts of Kindness, longlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2012

Longlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2012, Lees Rooney is a collaborative partnership between poet/ writer Janet Lees and photographer/ videographer Rooney. Having initially worked together as an advertising creative team, the pair is pursuing a range of art projects that combine words, images, sound and film, drawing on the nature of consumerism and the way we now live. Their art practice examines how 21st-century society is bombarded by a mash-up of loaded words, images and sounds and explores how consumerism lays down exacting and exhaustive rules on the way we should live our lives. Featuring in the Video, Installation & Performance category of the Aesthetica Art Prize 2012, High Voltage Acts of Kindness is one of a series of “snatches” – digital artworks that feature words and phrases that have been snatched from ads and other forms of mass communication – and speaks powerfully about the promise of the consumerist dream.

The Aesthetica Art Prize 2013 is now open for entries, and invites artists to submit their work into any category: Installation and Performance, Painting and Drawing, Three Dimensional Design and Sculpture, and Photographic and Digital Art. There will be a Main Prize winner and a Student Prize winner. Prizes include an eight-week group exhibition in York, UK, editorial coverage in Aesthetica Magazine, publication in the Aesthetica Art Prize Anthology and £1000 for the Main Prize winner and £500 for the Student Prize winner. Adding a brand new prize to the competition, Aesthetica has teamed up with the Art Collective to offer six months’ studio space for the Main Prize winner and six mentoring sessions for the Student Prize winner. Deadline for entries is 31 August.

For more details visit www.aestheticamagazine.com/artprize. To buy or download a copy of last competition’s Aesthetica Art Prize Anthology visit www.aestheticamagazine.com/shop#ap.