THE ARTIST

Simon Faithfull is an artist who works in a variety of ways. Most of his work would fall under the broad category of 'installation'. Installation can be thought of as 'art that surrounds you'. Installation work occupies the same space as the spectator, but it is not a single piece, like a sculpture. Installation can include: objects arranged in a room, video monitors, site-specific work made for a particular location, or interventions in the outdoor environment.

For the past year he has used a small hand held computer called a Palm Pilot as a sketching device. In September 2000, Faithfull made a piece for 'A Week of Small Miracles' along the River Lea Valley in East London. For this piece, he cycled up the River Lea sketching the horizon line on the palm pilot. The result was an informal, composite but disjointed visual account of his journey.

www.smallmiracles.org.uk/leenavigation/drawing.html

Simon's display in the Whitechapel's 'Temporary Accommodation' show was based on sketches he made on the Palm Pilot around the Whitechapel Art Gallery. These sketches were reproduced for the exhibition on different materials - transparent plastic, paper, polystyrene, flat and curved surfaces - and in different scales, from two inches to four feet tall. The images were scattered about the room. Some were hung on the wall like ordinary pictures, some dangled from the air or perched high up near the ceiling, others were mounted on ladders, light fittings, flexes and other structures which shared their space. A large plastic bag-like object was positioned over a gas flame, so that it bobbed and floated above the hot air. In keeping with the 'temporary' theme, Simon's room changed over the duration of the show, filling up with drawings as he produced and reproduced them.

But what was visible at the Whitechapel was only part of Faithfull's piece. Making use of what was unique to the palm pilot technology, the artist invited interested members of the show's audience to subscribe to by email and receive his drawings on a daily basis. While the exhibition in the gallery developed as new drawings were added, an online gallery of images was available to access in one's own personal computer.

 

Recent Installations

Airstrip One (Parklight, Clissold Park Stoke Newington) 'Park light' commissioned five artists to make works for the night in a north-east London park. In the half-light beyond the street-lamp's spill, lie the park's two lakes. Airstrip One was an absurd apparition that appeared at intervals in the dark waters. For two minutes the lights of an under-water airstrip faded up into existence beneath the surface, momentarily illuminating the murky waters before disappearing again. In the intervals between the apparition and during the day) the lakes returned to their mundane urban status, with no hint of the clandestine runway concealed beneath the water's surface.

Escape Vehicle no. 5 (the campaign against living miserably, Royal College of Art) A weather balloon tethered above the gallery with a chair hanging beneath it. The balloon is tethered through a hole drilled in a skylight and down to a concrete block sitting on the floor. Set into the wall by the exit is a pair of scissors waiting behind thin emergency glass. The gallery space becomes directly connected to the empty sky above it. The rope that tethers the escape vehicle, however, also has the effect of underlining the different realm to which this vehicle belongs. The balloon and chair are precariously poised at the moment of departure - ready to leave the concrete block and gallery behind.