LONDONFIELDWORKS

SPONTANEOUS CITY IN THE TREE OF HEAVEN+++LONDON+++JULY 2010

The Spontaneous City in the Tree of Heaven is a sculptural installation drawing on the ecology and biodiversity of two sites on opposite sides of London; Duncan Terrace Gardens in the East and Cremorne Gardens in the West. The installations reflect the forms of the surrounding architecture; a combination of Georgian town houses, and 60's social housing around Duncan Terrace, and the World's End Estate adjacent to Cremorne. The Spontaneous City in the Tree of Heaven has developed out of a recent London Fieldworks project called Super Kingdom, commissioned by Stour Valley Arts for Kings Wood in Kent.

The Secret Garden Project is a new programme of temporary commissions and pop up art events by young and established artists that will create a trail of London's secret gardens, lesser known green spaces, and urban corners. The project aims to bring high quality art projects and events to London's public realm; raise awareness of the ecological and cultural value of urban green space; encourage an understanding and engagement with ecology and biodiversity, create opportunities for community engagement and collaboration and encourage innovation.

More images

OUTLANDIA featured in Building Design online+++July 2010

ARS ELECTRONICA 2010+++HYBRID ARTS+++HONORARY MENTION

London Fieldworks' Super Kingdom: Monarchy has been awarded an Honorary Mention in the Hybrid Art category of ARS ELECTRONICA 2010.

"The “Hybrid Art” category is dedicated specifically to today’s hybrid and transdisciplinary projects and approaches to media art. Primary emphasis is on the process of fusing different media and genres into new forms of artistic expression as well as the act of transcending the boundaries between art and research, art and social/political activism, art and pop culture."

Super Kingdom:Monarchy from London Fieldworks on Vimeo.

April 2010+++Searching for Art's New Publics+++Published by intellect books

Searching for Art's New Publics
Edited by Jeni Walwin.
ISBN 9781841503110
intellect books
Drawing on contributions from practicing artists, writers, curators and academics, Searching for Art's New Publics explores the ways in which artists seek to involve, create and engage with new and diverse audiences: from passers-by encountering and participating in the work unexpectedly, to professionals from other disciplines and members of particular communities who bring their own agendas to the work.
Bridging the gap between practice and theory, this exciting book touches on issues of relational aesthetics, but also offers an illustrated artist-based approach. Searching for Art's New Publics will appeal to students studying fine art (especially those with an interest in cross-disciplinary work and public art) and those studying curating.

April 2010+++OUTLANDIA artists' fieldstation is nearing completion+++Glen Nevis, Scotland

The Outlandia artists' fieldstation is currently being constructed on Forestry Commission land in Glen Nevis, Lochaber, Scotland. The treehouse studio is conceived as a platform from which to consider creative responses to the environment.
Images from site visits here

Outlandia project information

Outlandia has been financially supported by The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Scottish Arts Council, Highland 2007 and Lochaber Enterprise.

SUPER KINGDOM: MONARCHY+++Video Screening at Birkbeck Cinema+++27.03.2010

ART+SCIENCE NOW+++Published by Thames and Hudson, Spring 2010

London Fieldworks' projects are included in ART+SCIENCE NOW a visual survey of artists working at the frontiers of science and technology. Focus on work since 2000. Covers artistic experimentation in fields such as biology, ecology, medical research, physics, geology, robotics, telecommunications, artificial intelligence, information visualization, and body sensing computer interfaces.

Super Kingdom has been nominated for Public Realm programme on www.axisweb.org

Click here to read a review of Super Kingdom by Sarah Wang, founding director of the Creative Intelligence Agency Ltd (CIA).

London Fieldworks are exhibiting at Verbeke Foundation

POLAR EXPEDITIONS
16.01.2010 - 15.05.2010
curators: Geert Verbeke, Simon Delobel
The Verbeke Foundation organises an exhibition on actual and fictitious polar expeditions from January 16th 2010 to May 15th 2010.
The exhibition also probes for the motives of artists who head for the North and South Poles: out of a fascination for the unknown, a desire to exploit new terrains for their art, an ecological conviction or a romantic sense of adventure?
The historic archives of the Belgian South Pole expeditions which were organised during the 1950 s to perform scientific experiments on terrestrial magnetism form the basis of the exposition. These archives will be used by Belgian artists to realize new installations. In this manner the exposition fits in with one of the recurrent themes of the Verbeke Foundation: the relation between art and science.

Artist Links Residency Award Brazil 2009

London Fieldworks have been selected in the fourth round of Artist Links, a joint project between Arts Council England and the British Council. The project activates the artists’ right to roam and nurtures a cross-cultural environment between Britain and other cultures through residencies and research periods. "Through this residency program we intend to visit the remains of the Atlantic Forest on Brazil’s eastern seaboard.... our host will be REGUA, (Reserva Ecológica de Guapiaçu) a non-governmental conservation project, with a mission to conserve the Atlantic Rainforest of the upper Guapiaçu river basin in the municipality of Cachoeiras de Macacu, Rio de Janeiro State."

June 2009+++OUTLANDIA under construction+++Glen Nevis Scotland

The Outlandia artists' fieldstation is currently being constructed on Forestry Commission land in Glen Nevis, Lochaber, Scotland. The wooden access path is near completion and the foundations for the building are in place.
Images from April/June site visit here

Outlandia project information

Outlandia has been financially supported by The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Scottish Arts Council, Highland 2007 and Lochaber Enterprise.

April 2009+++single screen LITTLE EARTH DVD publication

Single screen DVD version of the Little Earth multi-channel installation. New video edit by London Fieldworks and soundtrack remix by Dugal McKinnon.
Funded by University of Leicester and the New Zealand School of Music.
The DVD is published in an edition of 200 and is available here

LITTLE EARTH project

BEYOND ARCHITECTURE+++published by Gestalten Spring 2009

London Fieldworks' Super Kingdom project has been included in Beyond ArchitectureImaginative Buildings and Fictional Cities published by Gestalten.
Beyond Architecture is the first publication of its kind to document the creative exploration of architecture and urban propositions in the contemporary arts. The projects collected in this book demonstrate how not only architects and designers but also artists are taking architecture as a starting point for experimentation.
Features work by: Tom Sachs, Pipilotti Rist, Erwin Wurm, Rachel Whiteread, Mike Kelley, Do Ho Suh, The Chapman Brothers, Thomas Demand, Kobas Laksa, Arne Quinze, Wang Qingsong, Filip Dujardin, Studio Job, Droog Design, Atelier van Lieshout, Nathan Coley, Olafur Eliasson, eBoy, London Fieldworks and more.

AJ/Rambøll WhitbyBird Small Projects Awards 2009

London Fieldworks' Super Kingdom project has been shortlisted for the Architects' Journal (AJ) Small Projects Awards for 2009.
The entry features in the Januuary 22 issue of the AJ and will be exhibited at New London Architecture and other venues around the UK throughout the year.
Super Kingdom is a Stour Valley Arts Commission in collaboration with Consarc architects, Webb Yates Engineers and Setsquare Staging Limited.

SpaceBaby Video Screening+++++SINCRONIE 2008+++++Milan

SINCRONIE 2008/SPACE (AND) ART: actions in and around Earth's orbit
14 November 2008, O' - via Pastrengo, 12 Milano, Milan, Italy.
Curated by Arts Catalyst

SUPER KINGDOM+++Animal Show Homes in King's Wood+++2009 ongoing

SpaceBaby Video Screening+++++Less Remote+++++Glasgow

Less Remote: Arts/Humanities Symposium on Space Futures
30 Sep-1 Oct 2008 SEC, Glasgow, Scotland
International symposium at the 2008 International Astronautical Congress (IAC).

June 2008+++++SpaceBaby Video Launch+++++Whitechapel Gallery Cinema

SpaceBaby: guinea pigs don't dream
A new video work by London Fieldworks
script writer: Ken Hollings
composer: Dugal McKinnon
narrator: Roddy Maude-Roxby
duration: 22 minutes
Commissioned by The Arts Catalyst

SpaceBaby: guinea pigs don't dream is a 20-minute semi-fictional video journey into genetic space. It is the latest addition to London Fieldworks' Hibernator, a trilogy of installation and video works connecting myth and science, environmental cues and technological control, the virtual worlds we imagine and the real world we cannot escape. It mixes laboratory procedure with physical performance, CGI, narrative and sound. Human guinea pigs, fruit flies and lab rats are seen inhabiting a hallucinatory 24-hour world where night and day are interchangeable.

Working with writer Ken Hollings and composer Dugal McKinnon, London Fieldworks artists Jo Joelson and Bruce Gilchrist have used documentary footage of the live SpaceBaby experiment (staged at the Roundhouse in 2006 as part of The Arts Catalyst's Space Soon) along with resulting data and footage shot in molecular biology and sleep research labs.

Funded by Arts & Business (New Partners Award), AHRC and Arts Council England and sponsored by Affymextrix, Ambion, with collaborative support from Department of Genetics at University of Leicester.

SpaceBaby: guinea pigs don't dream from London Fieldworks on Vimeo.

June 2008+++++BIPOLAR Book Launch+++++International Polar Year 2007-2008

BIPOLAR is a new interdisciplinary polar archive created for International Polar Year 2007-08. It follows the ground-breaking symposium held at the British Library in late 2007, which brought together leading artists, scholars, scientists and thinkers to explore how our knowledge of the Polar Regions is constructed and how it can be engaged.

Featuring essays from the renowned geographer Denis Cosgrove and Kathryn Yusoff, it also contains over 30 archives contributed by the symposium participants that investigate various records - visual, personal,historical, chemical, biological - that can enrich and extend our engagement with the Polar Regions and their effect on global environments.

Book specifications:
Publication date: June 2008
60 colour Illustrations
128 pages
Binding: softback
ISBN: 978-0-9534546-6-2

Published by The Arts Catalyst
Edited by Kathryn Yusoff
Design by Paul Khera
Essays by Denis Cosgrove and Kathryn Yusoff
Contributors: Eric Wolff, Heather Frazar, Nigel Clark, Rachel Weiss, Jean de Pomereu, London Fieldworks, Stephan Harrison, Marko Peljhan, Simon Naylor, Katrina Dean, Anne Brodie, Sverker Sorlin, Klaus Dodds, Weather Permitting, Jennifer Gabrys, Jane D. Marsching, Matthew Kurtz, Emilie Cameron, Simon Faithfull, Aqqaluk Lynge, Dinah Malloy Thonpson, Bernard Stonehouse, Caroline Gunn, Chris Caseldine, Chris Turney, Snaebjornsdottir/Wilson, Rita Cachao + Ines Nisa Rato, Bradon Smith + Benjamin Morros, Adrian S Edwards, Michael Bravo

Photo: Kathryn Yusoff

+++Hibernator screening at Rational Rec+++ 06 May 2008

UNNATURAL HISTORIES
Venue: Bethnal Green Working Men's Club,
44 Pollard Row, London E2 6NB:
Doors: 8pm

more information:

Work in Progress 2008+++SpaceBaby+++ a new video work

SPACEBABY: a new artists' video by London Fieldworks

SpaceBaby is a 20- minute semi-fictional video journey into genetic space. It is the latest addition to London Fieldworks' Hibernator, a trilogy of installation and video works connecting myth and science, environmental cues and technological control; the virtual worlds we imagine and the real world we cannot escape. It mixes laboratory procedure with physical performance, CGI, narrative and sound. Human guinea pigs, fruit flies and lab rats are seen inhabiting a hallucinatory 24-hour world where night and day are interchangeable. It will be screened at the Whitechapel Art Gallery Auditorium on 4 June 2008.
Working with writer Ken Hollings and composer Dugal McKinnon, London Fieldwork artists Jo Joelson and Bruce Gilchrist are combining documentary footage of the live SpaceBaby experiment (staged at the Roundhouse in 2006 as part of The Arts Catalyst's Space Soon) along with the resultant gene expression data and footage shot in sleep research and molecular biology labs.

November 2007+++International Competition VIDA 10.0++++ Madrid

ART AND ARTIFICIAL LIFE IN THE 10TH EDITION OF THE INTERNATIONAL VIDA PRIZES

London Fieldworks' project, Hibernator: Prince of the Petrified Forest, has been awarded with a Special Mention by the jury of the International Competition VIDA 10.0 held in Madrid on the 9th of November.
VIDA 10.0 is an international competition created to reward excellence in artistic creativity in the fields of Artificial Life and related disciplines, such as robotics and Artificial Intelligence. Invitations were made for artistic projects that address the interaction between synthetic and organic life.

19-20.11.07++++POLAR: Fieldwork+Archive Fever++++British Library Conference Centre, London

The Arts Catalyst, the British Library and the Open University present:
POLAR: Fieldwork & Archive Fever
An interdisciplinary symposium

Polar: Fieldwork and Archive Fever is an interdisciplinary symposium focusing on the curation and production of climate change knowledge in the polar regions. It brings together scientists, writers, artists, historians and social scientists with interests in knowledge about the polar landscape and its broader implications for global climate and society.
The symposium is organised by the Open University in association with the British Library and The Arts Catalyst with international partners as part of a wider multi-disciplinary project exploring cultural and scientific issues surrounding climate change in the context of the International Polar Year (2007-08). It incorporates the 2-day Polar symposium, a publication, and a series of public lectures taking place at the British Library.
London Fieldworks will be contributing artists: DAY 1 - Monday 19 November 2007 / 15.45 Session 3: Instruments & Spaces of Curation

29.09-01.10-07+++++Case Study+++++Space + Culture Symposium+++++Bangalore, India

Participant's Abstract:
Rob La Frenais: Curator,The Arts Catalyst

UNUSUAL PAYLOADS

The imminent launching of the European Space Agency’s Columbus laboratory to the International Space Station will carry with it an unusual payload - in the abstract - with the first attempt to form a policy for ‘cultural utilisation’. The Arts Catalyst, along with the French branch of Leonardo and a Dutch space tether company won the contract to propose a cultural strategy for the European part of the space station.
To do this, it is necessary to become ‘intimate’ - as Roger Malina puts it in his paper ‘Lovely Weather’ - with the space agency. How do artists maintain their integrity with the necessary ‘boosterism’ that goes with a space launch and its accompanying PR? Many artists see data as contestable and scientific fact malleable. Can this be compatible with the incredible commitment that accompanies a space mission not to mention the extreme competitiveness for resources?
These issues will certainly be up for discussion if and when the Indian space programme comes to embrace culture.
As well as asking these questions I will present a case study,
‘SpaceBaby’ by London Fieldworks, a project about hibernation and long term space travel that partly evolved from workshops at Srishti, Bangalore.

Saturday 6 October 2007+++++Bodily Functions+++++Live Art Unpacked+++++Cork City, Ireland

Saturday 6th October LIVE ART UNPACKED by The Live Art Development Agency 2pm - Granary Theatre Starting at Twelve Noon Live Art Unpacked comprises three major events:
Video Screening of 'Live Art in the UK - A Sampler' - 12pm - 6pm Looped in Granary Studio Drawing on the Agency's Study Room resources and documentation of its many projects, the Live Art Development Agency offers a diverse range of screening programmes of contemporary Live Art practices for presentation as exhibitions or as theatrical screenings within international festivals and events. The screening programmes are curated and compiled in close collaboration with host partners and are tailored to respond to their artistic aspirations and curatorial approaches.
The work on the Live Art Sampler DVD has been selected by the Live Art Development Agency for BODILY FUNCTIONS 2007, 3 Days of Live Art in Cork. The DVD contains a selection of practices by UK based artists that range from street interventions; through gallery installations and theatre presentations; to documents of research, reinterpretations of performance works for camera, and works made especially for television. The screen programme will include work by Robin Deacon, Pacitti Company, London Fieldworks, Howard Matthew, Jordan McKenzie, Silke Mansholt, Stacy Makishi and Joshua Sofaer among others.

Saturday 22 September 2007+++++A One Day Symposium+++++University of Reading

Context
Artists continue to explore and exploit new ways of working that challenge conventional boundaries and confront the complex relationships between artist, environment and spectator. Working in the public domain is in itself not new, but the traditional focus on site and context is now joined by a consideration of people, and by the way in which artists seek to involve, create and engage with new and diverse audiences.
Project
This one-day symposium will look at the ways in which contemporary artists are involving the public as an integral and influencing factor within their practice. Writers, academics, curators and artists will contribute to the day’s discussions which will look at how and why some artists working today open up their work to embrace a contribution from the public which ultimately affects both the form and the content of the final piece.
The public in this instance can be defined in many different ways – for example, as passers-by encountering and participating in the work unexpectedly, as professionals from other disciplines i nvited to perform a specific role, or as members of a particular community which brings its own political agenda to the work. The papers will consider how far it is possible for the public to become both viewer and subject of the work, whilst resisting the possibility of becoming objectified by the artist for the benefit of his or her art.
Some speakers will touch on the issue of monument, exploring how far this term is relevant to the fluid and flexible contexts within which much public work is commissioned and within the agendas of individual artists who seek to articulate a new definition of monument for both public and private settings.
The programme is organised by Jeni Walwin, independent curator and Project Director, Artists in the City and Alun Rowlands, artist, curator and Lecturer in the Department of Fine Art at the University of Reading. Documents from the symposium will form the basis of a publication of the same name to be published later in the year, and incorporating a review of highlights from the Artists in the City programme.

Friday 13 July 2007+++++Biorama+++++Digital Research Unit

Biorama
Bioarama is a one-day event that illustrates new directions in art, science and technology by bringing together artists who explore notions of life, science and digital realities. By presenting these artists in the context of the DRU Artist in Residence project Biorama will explore a rich territory in which multiple threads of investigation come together to manifest unique interpretations and unfamiliar possibilities. Biorama serves to contextualise, examine and expand upon the research carried out by Andy Gracie (hostprods) during his residency which weaves together the microbiology of the Pennines around Marsden Moor, traditional and digital networking systems, satellite communications, perceptions of landscape and the history and possible future of interstellar communication. Biorama will take place in two stages with the Biorama hike in the morning and the Biorama sessions in the afternoon.
Biorama Sessions
The Biorama Sessions will introduce a number of artists whose work explores the natural environment, artificial landscapes and interactions with real or imagined lifeforms. Each session will feature a double presentation with two artists introducing their work and exploring common territories before brief open discussion.