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UAL Research Online

Filament

Faure Walker, James (2006) Filament. [Show/Exhibition]

Type of Research: Show/Exhibition
Creators: Faure Walker, James
Description:

I was commissioned to create four prints and to curate an exhibition of digital art, as part of the West London Design Festival. The title, ‘Filament’, referred to the electronic basis of the works, and also to string-like forms in astronomy, botany, neurology, and the charged wire of a light bulb. It alluded to the fine details of the very large, the very small, or the very old viewed through new technology.

I explored how a fluid and improvised drawing procedure used alongside paint software could be reconciled with an interest in scientific visualisation, in parallels between changing conceptions of ‘Nature’ since the 1900s and the development of digital tools.

Other Contributors:
RoleName
Other (Artist)Jespersen, Andrea
Other (Artist)Carnie, Andrew
Other (Artist)Crisp, Sandra
Additional Information (Publicly available):

James Faure-Walker

James Faure Walker (born 1948, London) studied painting and aesthetics at St Martins (1966-70) and the Royal College of Art (1970-72). He began writing criticism in the mid 1970s, and in 1976 he co-founded Artscribe - a journal for contemporary arts which he edited until 1983. His writings have been published in Studio International, Modern Painters, Mute, Computer Generated Imaging, Wired, Art Review, and he has contributed to a number of exhibition catalogues. A long-standing contributor to Siggraph, the annual conference on computer graphics, he has participated in numerous international computer arts festivals and exhibited widely in Austria, Germany, Holland, Japan, Russia, Spain and the USA. In 1998, he won the Golden Plotter first prize at Computerkunst, Gladbeck, Germany. Recent exhibitions include solo shows at DAM Gallery, Berlin, Digital Salon, New York and Bloomberg Space, London. He was awarded a three year AHRB Fellowship for research into painting and the digital studio in 2002, and is the author of 'Painting the Digital River: How an Artist Learned to Love the Computer', published by Prentice Hall (USA) in 2006.

Current Research

Having recently completed 'Painting the Digital River' I want to continue searching for ways of mixing and blending paint software with painting. I remain fascinated, too, by the shifting attitudes towards the use of technology in drawing and painting. In the latter stages of researching some illustrations for this book I became fascinated with the depiction of water. I have been photographing rock pools and water patterns left in sand. I also have developed a renewed interest in medieval and early renaissance painting.

In broader terms, and thinking forward to a further publication, or conference, I have been exploring the way the 'other worlds' in science - such as the immense spaces of astrophysics, the nano worlds of micro biology - could find some reflection in visual art. It is the question of how artists can make connections in their work beyond what is immediately visible, beyond the conventional subjects. In one sense our knowledge has reached out further than ever before, yet at the same time we speak of art having its own 'art world', its own local habitat, its comfort zone.

I am interested in raising the 'art' awareness in the development of software; also in the shape of new fine art courses incorporating digital expertise; in the future of digital painting; in redefining drawing; in producing a 'project manual' for visual thinking using computer graphics concepts. I am particularly interested in Walter Crane and Lewis Day's publications of the early 1900s, and how they anticipate these thoughts. Though I am suspicious of any instant remedies for the problem of integrating digital tools with traditional methods, I wonder whether a future generation will look back and wonder why painting, drawing, photography and digital media were studied separately.

Your affiliations with UAL: Colleges > Camberwell College of Arts
Date: 9 September 2006
Funders: London Print Studio
Related Websites: http://www.londondesignfestival.com/?id=981
Related Websites:
Event Location: London Print Studio, 425 Harrow Road London W10 4RE
Material/Media: Epson prints
Measurements or Duration of item: 44 x 50 inches
Date Deposited: 07 Dec 2009 12:17
Last Modified: 20 Mar 2012 15:12
Item ID: 942
URI: https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/942

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