LONDONFIELDWORKS

Null Object: Gustav Metzger thinks about nothing charts a project by London Fieldworks (Bruce Gilchrist andJo Joelson) with the participation of internationally celebrated artist Gustav Metzger to create a sculptural work by linking a computer-brain interface with industrial manufacturing technology.

Using bespoke software, London Fieldworks produced 3D shape information from EEG readings of Metzger’s brainwaves as he attempted to think about nothing. This data was translated into instructions for a manufacturing robot, which carved out the shapes from the interior of a block of stone to create a void space.

An introduction by the artists, a text by Gustav Metzger and four contextualising essays by writers across the fields of literature, art, science and technology explore the diverse historical and conceptual grounding for and broader implications of Null Object’s production process. Novelist Hari Kunzru explores nothingness as a productive category, while Dr. Christopher Tyler, inventor of the random-dot autostereogram, contrasts representations of negative space in art practice with perceptual representations in science. Essays by Nick Lambert and Bronac Ferran examine the resonances of Metzger’s participation in the project. Lambert situates London Fieldworks’ practice within a trajectory of questions about the place of the human in the informational world, as first addressed by Metzger over 40 years ago; Ferran focuses on Metzger’s commitment to the “the radical consequences of emptiness” within both Modernist discourse and the context of ecological crisis.

Null Object combines hyper-performativity with auto-production of sculptural form. It fuses together 'mind stuff' with software, wetware and hardware to produce a void in stone. (Bronac Ferran)

Null Object mocks the persistent narcissism of the artist, who beleives secretly that he is a little god. It is a release into a more profound and complex reality. A great liberation. (Hari Kunzru)

Super Kingdom: Monarchy is the final project in a trilogy of installation and video works by London Fieldworks connecting myth and science, environmental cues and technological control, the virtual worlds we imagine and the real worlds we cannot escape. The Monarchy DVD is available through Stour Valley Arts. A full colour 28pp booklet incorporated into the jacket design includes two essays: The Daughters of Libya by Dr Susanna Paisley (March 2011) and Bees and Butterflies by Dr Dominic Rahtz (February 2011). The booklet also includes photography of the Super Kingdom installation in King's Wood by London Fieldworks. Design: Dean Pavitt at Loup Design.

Rejecting didactic and documentary techniques for the idioms of contemporary music and literature, Little Earth is an audiovisual poem reflecting how the "last of the natural philosophers" became the first of the "big scientists". This single channel DVD has been produced from the multi-channel Little Earth installation with a specially remixed soundtrack by Dugal McKinnon. The DVD includes an 8pp booklet containing archival photographs and an introductory text by the artists.
This publication was funded by the University of Leicester and the New Zealand School of Music.

London Fieldworks: Little Earth is the second book by artists Bruce Gilchrist and Jo Joelson. It was published in 2005 to accompany the Little Earth exhibition.

London Fieldworks: Little Earth is a collection of writings and documentation charting the development of the Little Earth project. It contains much of the project research and process with contributions by collaborators from the fields of the visual arts and physical sciences.

This publication documents the formal twinning of the two mountain top observatories in Scotland and the Norwegian arctic in a special ceremony at the West Highland Museum in October 2004 and charts the development of the four-channel film work and sculptural installation.

Context for London Fieldworks' projects is provided in an essay by Tracey Warr alongside a written and visual document of the twinning ceremony by Jeni Walwin. Composer Dugal Mckinnon's essay describes his response to the Little Earth installation format and his approach to creating the surround-sound work. The Little Earth text written by James Flint is included along with the accompanying video stills. The historical significance of the two scientists, their instruments and legacies are described authoritatively and in depth by scientists from the fields of meteorology and physics. All essays are accompanied by striking images from archives, public and private collections and the artists own documentation.

Syzygy took place on the remote and uninhabited Scottish island of Sanda in summer 1999. A team of artists, writers, musicians, kite flyers and a computer programmer spent a week on the island, taking with them a range of computer, communication, atmospheric diagnostic and biofeedback technologies in an attempt to corner their notoriously elusive quarries-consciousness and weather. For Polaria , Gilchrist and Joelson travelled to North East Greenland in August 2001 to conduct fieldwork that would inform the making of an interactive virtual daylight installation.

Endorsements:

"A staggeringly ambitious, multi-disciplinary art project - or rather dedicated campaign - yoking together atmospheric and weather patterns, brain waves, stunt kites, a remote Scottish island and a major London gallery; named after a remote astronomical phenomena when planets align in space."
The Guardian

"SYZYGY has not only offered up a unique model for creative research and collaboration, it has also set the pace and ambition for imaginatively sited new-technology arts projects."
The Glasgow Herald

"London Fieldworks put us in their debt by opening a fresh paradigm for avant garde art activity today."
Stewart Home

"With so much art today obsessed with the detritus of urban life - rubbing it in as it were - it is good to see artists going out and taking risks in exploring the further reaches of nature. Consciousness and our desire to understand has become a central proccupation of our time. Their determined long term engagement should surely be applauded."
Gustav Metzger