Biters, 2014

Biters, 2014; Larry Achiampong & David Blandy

'Biters' is a partnership between Larry Achiampong & David Blandy who share an interest in popular culture and the post-colonial position. 2014-15

The artists performed at selected venues such as Spike Island, Bristol; Artsadmin, London; Modern Art Oxford, Oxford; Artprojx, London; Fierce Festival, Birmingham; Attic, Nottingham;

David Blandy and Larry Achiampong share a quest for truth and authentic experience via the cultures that have influenced them, investigating how our identities are continually shaped by mass-media art forms, such as television, videogames, music and the internet.

The project proceeds from solo projects that explore both artists’ interests to create a new collaboration – a body of songs that uses their musical heritage to form new collages that combine lyrics and sounds that draw from each artist’s identity. Drawing analogies between art’s history of appropriation and collage and Hip-hop’s legacy of sampling, the project will scrutinise ideas around authorship, copyright and identity. Who owns the products we develop that take inspiration from other sources, is this ‘Biting’ [Hip-hop slang for stealing]? What does authenticity mean in the information age?

Blandy and Achiampong separately explore issues surrounding race and culture from completely different backgrounds. What they share is an interest in communal and personal heritage, the influence of popular culture, and using performance to investigate the self as a fiction, devising alter-egos to point at their divided selves. 

Supported by Lottery Funded Arts Coucil England