Home Work 2020

Home Work 2020 is an anthology of work from the graduating students on the BA (Hons) Photography degree at London South Bank University. In a year when terms like social distancing and lockdown became part of everyday speech, Home Work 2020 brings together the work of an exceptional year of graduates. The title implies both the physical reality of their spaces for making and learning over the past months of working from home. It also points towards the work of these students as being in a state of preparation for something, for what amounts to new ways of conceiving, producing and disseminating images. (Excerpt from intro text by Simon Terrill

Crowd Theory

Crowd Theory is an ongoing series of photographic and performance-based events with crowds, communities and the spaces they occupy

Part I, Unified Pharmacophore Protein Models of the Benzodiazepine Receptor Subtypes ; Part II, Subtype

Part I. New models of unified pharmacophore/receptors have been constructed guided by the synthesis of subtype selective compounds in light of recent developments both in ligand synthesis and structural studies of the binding site itself. The evaluation of experimental data in combination with comparative models of the α1β2γ2, α2β2γ2, α3β2γ2 and α5β2γ2 GABA(A) receptors has led to an orientation of the pharmacophore model within the benzodiazepine binding site (Bz BS). These results not only are important for the rational design of new selective ligands, but also for the identification and evaluation of possible roles which specific residues may have within the benzodiazepine binding pocket. More importantly, the process summarized here may be used as a general template to help scientists develop novel ligands for receptors for which the three dimensional structure has not yet been confirmed by X-ray crystallography or cryo-electron microscopy. Presented here are new models of the α1β2γ2, α2β2γ2, α3β2γ2 and α5β2γ2 GABA(A) receptors which have incorporated homology models built based on the acetylcholine binding protein. These new models will further our ability to understand structural characteristics of ligands which act as agonists, antagonists, or inverse agonists to the Bz BS of the GABA(A) receptor. This approach will also serve as a powerful model for structure based approaches carried out using ligand-protein docking methods. Part II. An effective strategy to alleviate memory deficits would be to enhance memory and cognitive processes by augmenting the impact of acetylcholine released from cholinergic neurons of the hippocampus. Using the included volume pharmacophore presented in Part I, a number of a5 selective compounds were synthesized, notably PWZ-029. PWZ-029 was examined in rats in the passive and active avoidance, spontaneous locomotor activity, elevated plus maze and grip strength tests which are indicative of the effects on memory acquisition, locomotor activity, anxiety, and muscle tone. Improvement of task learning was shown at a dose of 5mg/kg in passive avoidance test without effect on anxiety or muscle tone. Moderate negative modulation at GABA(A) receptors containing the α5 subunit using a moderate inverse agonist such as PWZ-029, is a sufficient condition for eliciting enhanced encoding/consolidation of declarative memory. Using low temperature NMR and X-ray analysis, it was shown that enhanced selectivity and potent in vitro affinity of α5 selective benzodiazepine dimers was possible with aliphatic linkers of 3 to 5 carbons in length. Although originally proposed to enhance solubility, oxygen-containing linkers caused the dimer to fold back on itself leading to the inability of dimers to enter the binding pocket. In addition, studies of a series of PWZ-029 analogs found that the electrostatic potential near the ligands\u27 terminal substituent correlated with its binding selectivity toward the α5β2γ2 versus α1β2γ2 Bzr/GABA(A) ergic isoform. Investigations further found that compound PWZ-029, which exhibits reasonable binding selectivity toward GABA(A) receptors containing the a5 subunit and possesses a favorable electrophysiological profile, was able to attenuate scopolamine induced contextual memory impairment in mice. This compound appears to be useful (Harris, Delorey et al.) for the treatment of cognitive deficits in rodents as well as primates (Rowlett et al.) and may well be a compound for the treatment of patients with Alzheimers disease

36 Views of Orbit

Alluding to the 18th century Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai’s famous woodblock prints of Mount Fuji, the subject of this work is the spiraling red giant of the ArcelorMittal Orbit observation tower built for the London Olympic Park in 2012. This mad structure infects its surrounds with a strange presence akin to a mutant DNA spiral rising from the toxic ground of these former wastelands; a last recalcitrant gasp from the areas’ rich industrial past. Circled from the ground and viewed from a variety of places and distances, Thirty-Six Views of Orbit depicts the tower as it peers between trees, waves its head above chimneys, over freeways and intrudes into the ordinary events playing out below

Seething Lane

In 'Seething Lane', Simon Terrill is presenting for the first time, new photographic works alongside recent drawings and a seven-colour screen print. Individually and collectively, these artworks reflect on fleeting moments in time – captured scenes which might well have been overlooked in the moment and that become significant actions in their detail. The works reference Pieter Bruegel’s 'Landscape with the Fall of Icarus' (c. 1560) as well as 'The Fall of the Rebel Angels' (1562), Jeffrey Smart’s 'Cahill Expressway' (1962), imagery drawn down from Google Earth and a street in central London named Seething Lane. 'Seething Lane' presents new developments in Terrill’s longstanding themes of relations between architectural spaces and their received narratives, public and private identities, and the idea of the crowd as a tool to examine architecture, identity, community and performance of self. ___ EXHIBITION TEXT 'According to Bruegel when Icarus fell it was spring' 1 There are two poems that refer to Bruegel’s painting, 'Landscape with the Fall of Icarus' (c.1560) which speak to the invisibility and insignificance of the event pictured in the artwork. In one poem by William Carlos Williams also titled after the painting, he remarks on “a splash quite unnoticed”, while in Musee des Beaux Arts, W.H. Auden observes how “everything turns away, quite leisurely from the disaster” 2. Seething Lane is the name of a relatively non-descript street in central London, with a bar, a church, a hotel, and some empty looking offices that I cycle past on route to my studio at Somerset House. In the summer of 2018, I was sitting in the studio’s courtyard with a historian friend, when he made the claim that Somerset House is the place where, in 1768, James Cook received the envelope with instructions to sail to the South Pacific. The stated purpose of this journey was to map the transit of Venus: to establish the distance of the sun from the earth and by extension, the size of the solar system. However, as we now know, due to a funding arrangement between the royal society and the royal navy, this envelope enclosed another that was only to be opened when the transit of Venus mapping was complete. Contained within this supplementary envelope were the instructions for Cook to continue from Tahiti in pursuit of a long held European hunch – that to balance out the north a great southern landmass existed. As it happened, my historian friend was close but not quite right. The exchange didn’t happen at Somerset House, as the Naval offices only moved there in 1786. Rather, the moment happened nearby in Seething Lane. And it was on that non-descript street, in a place with a name that digs inside the consequences of an act, in which an envelope was passed from one person to another. 1 Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, William Carlos Williams 2 Musee des Beaux Arts. W. H. Aude

Nouns of Assembly

Nouns of Assembly: In his third solo exhibition at Sutton Gallery, Simon Terrill brings together a triptych of photographs plus a sculpture and a text piece running the length of the gallery walls. He aligns fantasy architecture of the funfair with the utopian proposition of the unrealised monument that is Tatlin's Tower. Terrill's continued exploration of gathering and crowding is extended into spaces that are presented under a utilitarian and political guise. Catalogue text by Dr Josephine Kane, Tutor in History of Design at the Royal College of Art, London

Sources of inspiration: from the monument tothe ordinary

Featuring leading international architects, artists and thinkers this symposium investigates the legacy and impact of British architectural pioneers Alison and Peter Smithson across urbanism, habitation and education

Parallel (of Life and) Architecture: The Ostrich and the Kipper

Parallel (of Life and) Architecture invites three ‘duos’ of architects, artists and designers to respond to the legacy of Alison and Peter Smithson (A+PS), their relationship with the avant-garde and architecture as a ‘direct result of a way of life.’ Echoing the methods and collaborative processes of A+PS during their breakthrough phase as architects in 1950s Britain, the resulting commissions offer insight into their research and creative practice. Assemble & Simon Terrill, Warren & Mosley, The Decorators & GOIG each take key developments in the Smithsons’ oeuvre as creative departure points including: calculations for collective planning (Scales of association 1954); temporary structures (Patio and Pavilion 1956); and historiographical approaches (Milan Triennale 1968). Seen collectively, the exhibition highlights the Smithsons’ impact and lasting relevance as radical thinkers. Though concerned with how we lived then, their ideas continue to influence how we live now and undoubtedly will in the future. The exhibition’s title is taken from the ground-breaking exhibition Parallel of Life and Art, staged in 1953 at the ICA, London by the Smithsons, artist photographer Nigel Henderson and sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi

Ideas Series: Crowd Theory

From the series Communities, Collectives and Collaboration. Exploring and expanding on the Brighton Photo Biennial 2014 theme Communities, Collectives and Collaboratio