Research

Word Image
Joint PI: Sharon Morris and Jon Thomson

About     News     People

Jon Thomson Lecturer, Slade School of Fine Art (UCL), Artist (Thomson & Craighead)

Background statement of research

My collaborative research with Alison Craighead comes from a fascination we share in how global communications networks are transforming the way we all perceive and understand the world around us. Our practice spans online and public art commissions, as well as gallery-based work and often looks at how real time processes and live data transmission can be used as a material or artistic medium. Examples would include an artwork called, 'Horizon'; a narrative clock made out of images accessed in realtime from webcams found in every time zone around the world, and BEACON; a large mechanical railway flap-sign that continuously relays live web searches as they are being made around the world presenting them back anonymously and at regular intervals as an endless poetic broadcast.

At present

Making narrative documentaries entirely from information found on the worldwide web. Our most recent being, 'A Short film about War' where viewers are taken to a variety of war zones as seen through the eyes of the online photo sharing community Flickr, and as witnessed by military and civilian bloggers.

Recent publications

A Short Film about War, Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, 2009
'Flat Earth', English Lounge, Tang Contemporary, Beijing, 2009
'Decorative Newsfeeds.' Flicker, British Council Collection exhibition, Damascus 2009
'Horizon' and 'BEACON.' Timecode, Dundee Contemporary Arts, 2009
Solo exhibition, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 2008

Links

j.thomson@ucl.ac.uk
http://www.thomson-craighead.net