The Last X Years

Jay Bernard

Online
NOW 09 February 2025 - ongoing
Visitor information

The Last X Years

Read more

"The current political and social climate is both familiar and unknown, chaotic and programmatic, amnesiac and highly documented. The Last X Years is therefore both a mirror and a repository, on-going talk-radio from the vanishing past, a memory project that sits as a constant reminder of where the present came from." Jay Bernard

 

 

 

The Last X Years is a new digital project by artist and poet Jay Bernard. 

Between 2021-2024, Bernard travelled around the UK interviewing people of all ages and backgrounds, asking what they remember about the 2016 EU referendum. Participants shared a range of perspectives and reflected on how they and the country changed during this turbulent time. These conversations sit at the heart of the project and are presented in a familiar broadcast format.

Determining the sequence of the broadcast is an AI that couples interview excerpts with a repository of news headlines published from 2016 onwards. Instructed to search the internet for articles relating to the referendum, the AI gathered thousands of stories that cover topics such as trade, migration, and sovereignty.  The pairings are made based on the AI's assessment of the relevance between headline and interview. While ordinarily an AI would operate out of sight, the artwork simultaneously conceals and reveals its covert operations and unveils the pairing logic at play.

Between tabs marked 'voice', 'mirror', and 'memory', audiences can hear people's reflections, see the AI's logic, and explore the repository of interviews and headlines.

In The Last X Years, humans and machines are all participants. They are audible and silent, transmitters and receptors, active and activated. Through the project, Bernard brings together and makes apparent the many visible and invisible forces at play during that particular political moment. 

The artist deliberately resists focussing on the new identities of ‘Brexiteer’ and ‘Remainer’ formed in the run up to the referendum that linger to this day. Instead, Bernard chooses to focus on creating a space where people can listen to and engage with perspectives outside of their own while reflecting on the ongoing deployment of digital technology in producing and disseminating information. 

About Jay Bernard

Read more

Jay Bernard

Jay Bernard (FRSL) is a writer from London. Their work is interdisciplinary, critical, queer, and rooted in poetry, the voice and social histories. They won the 2018 Ted Hughes Award for Surge: Side A, a cross-disciplinary exploration of the New Cross Fire in 1981, and The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award for the poetry collection that followed.

In 2020 Jay was selected to be a part of Thinking Time, an initiative by Artangel that supported early-career artists to research, reflect, and develop their ideas. Recent work includes Crystals of this Social Substance (Serpentine Pavilion, 2021), You are Invited Back to the Land (Tate Britain, 2023) and Far from the Start (Studio Voltaire, 2024).

Portrait of Jay Bernard wearing a black t-shirt, standing with their arms crossed, in front of a white wall.

Image: (above) Portrait of Jay Bernard, photography by Ajamu X. (left) Photo courtesy of Speaking Volumes.

Watch: Artist Film

Read more

'The current political and social climate is both familiar and unknown, chaotic and programmatic, amnesiac and highly documented. The Last X Years is therefore both a mirror and a repository, on-going talk-radio from the vanishing past, a memory project that sits as a constant reminder of where the present came from.'

Hear Jay Bernard discuss their interest in exploring our capacity to listen and engage with perspectives outside of our own, and how a seismic political moment instigated the development of this online work.

Production Credits

Read more

Artist: Jay Bernard 

Design, Process Development and Website: Rectangle 

Machine Learning Engineer: Ashwin D’Cruz 

Sound Mixing: Stefan Smith

Commissioned and Produced by Artangel 

With special thanks to all interviewees, who asked to remain anonymous. Thanks to; Marina Doritis, Akwugo Emejulu, Lex Fefegha, Charmian Griffin, Lizzie Malcolm and Dan McQuillan. 

Credits

Read more

Who made this possible?

The Last X Years is commissioned and produced by Artangel. 

Artangel is generously supported using public funding by Arts Council England, and by the private patronage of The Artangel International CircleGuardian AngelsSpecial Angels and The Company of Angels.