23.03.16 - 24.04.16
Rice + Toye space Soho
The following is an excerpt from Michael Ashcroft autobiography, Dirty Politics, Dirty Times, first published in 2005. It refers to a period during the early to mid-1960s:
“I also managed a pop group called Trident whom I naturally hoped would become the equivalent in fame and wealth to the Beatles. Trident was a four-man rhythm ’n’ blues band and my managerial role involved driving the group around in a battered green Transit-style van to their often less than packed gigs. Fame always eluded us, and the band eventually broke up, leaving its members and its manager as impoverished as the day it had been formed.”
Alton engages in a cartographic process that involves the cross-pollination of both fact and fiction. Working simultaneously with satire and celebration, Alton invokes seemingly incongruous juxtapositions, as a means of visualising the power structures in which we are all embedded – narrating something that is too complex to be immediately comprehendible.
For this exhibition Alton has collaborated with writer Rachel Hill to produce a limited edition cassette tape. The tape contains tracks from Ascroft Records' band Trident alongside a text exploring the etymological origins of Trident.