LONDONFIELDWORKS

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