Like Etchells’ neons Wait Here (2008) and A Message (2014), As Seen creates a tension between the viewers’ encounter with the fixed/material form of the art work and the idea of another time.

Where A Message points to the past, As Seen directs the viewer to the future – asking them to consider the exact instance of their viewing the work, as though that instance were observed from some later moment in time. Creating a kind of loop in time in this way, Etchells invites a self-consciousness to the act of looking, in which the spectator is caught in two simultaneous or parallel encounters – one with the work itself and the other with an imagined future moment of looking back at their encounter.

About Tim Etchells’ neon and LED works

Etchells’ neon and LED pieces often draw on his broader fascinations as an artist, writer and performance maker, exploring contradictory aspects of language – the speed, clarity and vividness with which it communicates narrative, image and ideas, and at the same time its amazing propensity to create a rich field of uncertainty and ambiguity.

Through simple phrases spelt out in neon, LED and other media, Etchells strives to create miniature narratives, moments of confusion, awkwardness, reflection and intimacy in public and gallery settings. Encountering the neon sign works, in the streets of a city or in the space of a white cube gallery, the viewer becomes implicated in a situation that’s not fully revealed, or a linguistic formulation that generates confusion or ambiguity. As often in Etchells’ work, in the neons the missing parts of the picture are as important as the elements that are present. Invoking a story, or projecting an idea out-of-context, the work invites us in, but into what exactly we can’t be sure.