I’m a writer and artist or an artist and writer... sometimes other things, too.
I live in the UK. The work I make for publication, performance, broadcast and installation is often “subversive” (SFX), at times “startling” (The Independent) and occasionally even “fascinating” (The Times). Wikipedia classifies me as a “Science Fiction Artist”. I’m not sure what the anonymous Wikipedians and/or their taxonomical algorithm were thinking, nor am I entirely sure what it signifies, but I’m willing to live with it. I like to imagine that it means I’m an artist from science fiction. Perhaps a character in a William Gibson novel?
I take part in gallery exhibitions, art and film festivals, readings, workshops and real-world incursions throughout my home country, the rest of Europe, and the world. Highlights of my career so far include the publication of two novels, being artist in residence at the University of Edinburgh’s Genomics Policy & Research Forum, exhibiting my films at La Biennale di Venezia, being awarded the Berwick Gymnasium Artist Fellowship by English Heritage and Arts Council England and working in Japan on absolutely anything.
Much of my work involves oratory and storytelling. I'm particularly interested in traditional and contemporary folklore, esoterica and Forteana of Britain, Europe and Asia, legitimate mainstream sciences, and the fringe or pseudo-sciences that go along with them. My recent works have extensively researched factual backgrounds; they use scientific or academic forms and research methods, sometimes earnestly, sometimes satirically. I like creepy old mannequins, broken toys, museums, absurdity and making technology do things its manufacturers wouldn‘t approve of.
I’m an Associate Artist at ArtSway, an artist member of the Contemporary Art Society and a member of Market Project: professional and economic research by artists. I’ve collaborated with artists, writers, designers, actors, architects and scientists for over ten years. I constantly seek new opportunities to make, exhibit and talk about my work, to perform or do readings, and to forge new and lasting connections with interesting people or places, so I really welcome enquiries and communication. I post regularly on Twitter.
I also have another site for assorted non work-related writing, ADOXOBLOG, and one related to my book about the realities of the art world, Career Suicide.
Scroll down for updates, site map and streaming video.
"As far as I can judge, I am not actually mentally ill." (Vincent Van Gogh, 1889)
Career Suicide is my new non-fiction book about the realities of working in the contemporary art world for most professional artists, the thousands of unfashionable, little-known and underpaid ones who have to do all manner of unfashionable, little-known and underpaid things to survive.
It will also answer some of the questions that outsiders often ask about contemporary art, and some that they don’t: Why do some artists spend their whole careers doing stupid stuff like mutilating mannequins or painting old bits of wood with baffling phrases? Why does everyone in the art world get paid, apart from the artists? Why do most art students spend years doing their MA, closely followed by them doing sweet FA? Who are the HoWiAs, and what the hell do they think they're doing? How and why did a bunch of paintings that looked like vandalised portraits of SpongeBob get taken so seriously at an international art fair?
PERFORMANCE LECTURES: Stendhal Syndrome and Abyssinian Gold [Vexations, After Horace De Vere Cole] - NEW RESEARCH: forthcoming and in-development live and video works - MAGICKAL REALISM: John Dee, Edward Kelley, the Elizabethan occult and Catholic suicide bombers - NOWHERE PLAINS: The first human on Mars - THREE TIMES TRUE: genomics animated - PHANTOM POWER: museums and what we leave behind - VIDEO WITH NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS: Chinese simulacra of Western forms. QINGDAO 58 MIDDLE: Chinese high school documentary. Most of these works can be seen as extracts or in their entirety on the individual pages or in the Vimeo player below.
Photos, digital and in camera multiple exposures, montages.
Novels and short stories from the early Nineties to the present, and a preview of some of the work that appears in UNCANNY VALLEY: COLLECTED SHORT STORIES.
Biography and contact information.
OTHER SITES AND BLOGS
Taking stupid stuff seriously: ADOXOBLOG
Reviewing the art world, violently: Career Suicide
Market Project: professional and economic research by artists.
This John Dee bust, as seen and used in Magickal Realism, can be bought from ArtSway’s section of the new Own Art online store. The bust is about 16cm tall, hand lacquered in piano black, in a signed and numbered limited edition. Own Art also has a lot of other interesting, reasonably affordable works by dozens of contemporary artists and galleries from all over the UK.
My major project for 2010 was the performance lecture series Magickal Realism, based upon the life and work of the Elizabethan magus and scholar John Dee and his relationship with the medium and con man Edward Kelley. I started work on Magickal Realism in 2009; the first performance was at Colchester Arts Centre in February 2010, followed by several others. In autumn there were new showings on the Isle of Wight and at Kassel in Germany.
See many images, a huge amount of background information and a fraction of my research material on Dee when you visit the Magickal Realism page.
Supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, 2009, and by ArtSway Associates.
At the start of 2011 I was Artist in Residence at KINO KINO Senter for Kunst og Film in Norway, researching and producing two new films in HD: a performance lecture called Stendhal Syndrome (a condition afflicting people who have seen too much art) and a performance video called Abyssinian Gold [Vexations, After Horace De Vere Cole]. Read about both films on my Performance Lectures page.
New 03/2011: Watch both films in the Vimeo player or here.
New 05/2011: Read about some new films and performances I'm researching.
New 07/2011: Uncanny Valley: Collected Short Stories is now available from the Apple iBook store and from Amazon for the Kindle. Two new films uploaded to Vimeo, plus my Chinese school documentary Qingdao 58 Middle is available again.
New 09/2011: I've made two books of images available on Blurb. The first is a photo book called 'Situation Normal' which collects pictures of dinosaur attacks, homoerotic totalitarian statuary, replicas and simulacra, giant teddy bears, strange signs, swordfighting pedestrians, kimokawaii street clutter and incomprehensible buildings photographed on my travels through Europe, China and Japan. See some of my photos and photomontages here. The other is a second edition of 'Three Times True', my art book inspired by genomics and my residency at the Genomics Policy & Research Forum/University of Edinburgh. These books are very sexy, especially the pro paper hardback versions.
New 12/2011: Hard cover and Apple iBookstore ebook versions of Career Suicide are now available.
Uncanny Valley collects many of my published short stories from the mid Nineties until late 2008, when the book came out. Some of the stories can be previewed at this site or at Pulp.Net (which is currently on hiatus, but the archive remains available). The book has two completely new and previously unpublished stories, ‘Mickey’s Mouth’ and ‘The Anachronist.’
Buy directly here or from the Amazon mothership. New 05/2010: Due to reduced printing costs, Uncanny Valley is now only £6.99 + postage. A PDF download is also available. New 07/2011: Now available from Apple as an eBook and from Amazon for the Kindle.
Tweet this page
ADOXOBLOG: TAKING STUPID STUFF SERIOUSLY Reviewing the art world, violently... Career Suicide blog |
||||