Planned Obsolescence

Norwich-based polymath and multimedia artist Tristan Burfield brings together fellow environmental artists Hannah Ayres, Michael Ridge and Liza Read for Planned Obsolescence, a group exhibition exploring our complicated relationship with technology, waste, consumption and the objects that surround us.

Bringing together photography, installation, handmade works and interactive sculpture, the exhibition asks what happens to the things we discard - and what they might become when given a second life.

The artists share a commitment to reuse, sustainability and questioning our culture of consumption, transforming discarded and obsolete materials into works that are playful, thought-provoking and at times deliberately unpredictable.

Tristan Burfield's work embraces the visual language of obsolete technology, featuring lo-fi photographic digital prints created using recycled, discarded and outdated devices including a Y2K-era Casio WQV-1 Watch Camera, Sony Mavica Floppy Disc Camera and Game Boy Camera. His work explores the character, warmth and limitations of early digital imagery as an antidote to the industry's relentless pursuit of high-resolution, 4K perfection.

Alongside the photography, visitors can encounter a holographic extinction-world installation, handmade recycled-paper canvases and interactive junk-noise machines, constructed from discarded and abandoned consumer hardware.

Planned Obsolescence invites us to look again at the things we have been taught to replace, upgrade and throw away - and to consider whether obsolescence might offer the starting point for something new.