‘Consistent with Advice’ was created at home in London in early 2020 during the national lockdown responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Using communication material produced by the UK public sector, I have re-appropriated, re-contextualised, and re-constructed visual elements from these publications.

Governments have continually issued advice about different crises. Some of these crises have not occurred but dominated the public discourse and popular culture. Other crises which have arisen have either not entered popular consciousness or have slipped from it.

These government-issued edicts at times of actual or perceived crisis have largely been similar, regardless of emergency. One can map the advice from the different dangers, and when one compares this it becomes apparent that it is essentially useless; it will not help.

This project maps advice from previous crises onto advice issued for the current pandemic and conveys the consistency of the inadequacy of official instructions.

Ben Mueller-Brown is an emerging fine art photographer, image maker, and all-round tinkerer. Appropriation of technical images has come to be his signature style, especially images taken from official sources such as public information films and instruction manuals. Mueller-Brown works to capture the enigmatic way that visual information can be rendered in a style layering appropriated analogue images, appears visually pleasing, while the function remains frustratingly elusive.

Ben is content when taking audio-visual equipment from the last century apart and, usually, back together again in his home studio in Battersea, London.