COBRA RES
COBRA RES offers a mirror up to the official COBRA as a way of producing different information, new perspectives and alternative narratives, while existing in a mimetic relationship to the emergency Committee itself and the situation it is responding to.
COBRA RES aims to re-frame the response from an aesthetic perspective, while operating as an active- archive that follows, traces and maps the constantly changing tide of emergency politics. COBRA RES is a collective of artists and writers who aim to ask critical questions of COBRA through a series of creative responses. Reflecting and mimicking the structure of the COBRA Committee, the artists, writers and filmmakers are chosen for their relevance to the given context of the COBRA meeting.
The artists and writers are given a short period of time from the initial COBRA meeting in which to respond to either COBRA or the context it is meeting under. For the process to work, it is important that pressure is applied to the artists and writers so as prevent too much consideration, with limited facts available, in an attempt to re-create a parallel action of response.
COBRA RES have met on the following occasions since January 2013:
COBRA 1.0 Our first response was an exhibition after COBRA had met when hostages had been held in the Tiguentourine gas plant in Algeria.
COBRA 1.1 The second response was a book of artistic and written responses to the COBRA meeting following the killing of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, south London.
COBRA 1.2 Responding to the situation in Nairobi shop- ping centre, secret postal responses were submitted to COBRA RES by a selection of artists. This work will not be viewed or opened until the final COBRA RES exhibition in 2018.
COBRA 1.3 DVD of artist films with accompanying book of texts, which responded to the extensive flooding to hit large parts of the United Kingdom.
COBRA 1.4 COBRA 1.5 COBRA 1.6
All three events happened within one week of each other, prompting COBRA RES to combine all three responses into one
set of three reappropriated card games and a booklet of text- based responses to the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight
MH17 in Ukraine, the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa and the
advance of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
COBRA 1.7 In response to the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo Magazine and a Jewish supermarket in Paris, COBRA RES invited artists to submit artworks to
form an exhibition and publication.
COBRA RES will continue responding to COBRA over the next three years until 2018.