Temporal View in Amsterdam (After BB Turner)

Turner– Stilte in de Stad (Turner- Silence in the City), Stadsarchief Amsterdam, Aug 4th-Nov 1st, 2020.

The heart of Amsterdam and it is dead quiet. Or does it seem like that? Benjamin Brecknell Turner’s 1857 photograph of the Westermarkt puts us on the wrong track. The image was taken with the very first photographic technique and the long recording time has erased every movement. For example, the city seems extinct as during a lockdown. This photo and other rare historical cityscapes of Turner’s contemporaries can be seen in the exhibition Turner, Silence in the City, in the Treasury from 4 August to 1 November 2020.

Fragile masterpieces like this rarely leave our safe depot. This presentation was made with the support of the Rembrandt Association and the Turing Foundation and shows the surprising richness of the collection of the City Archives. It is a unique opportunity to see the mysterious beauty and chiaroscuro of Turner’s masterpiece. His photographic tour is linked to the 21st century in the exhibition by a video work by British artist Chris Meigh-Andrews from 2003.

Video work
The English video artist Chris Meigh-Andrews (1952) based his work on Turner’s “Amstel at the Halvemaansbrug”, a paper negative in the collection of the City Archives. Temporal View in Amsterdam (After BB Turner) is made up of video sequences from the same place, made on a single day in 2003 between 3:30 am and 8:00 pm. Everyday events captured in image and sound, we see the light change and we hear the street sounds. It makes us very aware of the century and a half that have passed since Turner made his calotype.

Link to Stadsarchief webpage

Technology, Design and the Arts – Opportunities and Challenges


Technology, Design and the Arts – Opportunities and Challenges, Earnshaw, R., Liggett, S., Excell, P., Thalmann, D. (Eds.), just published by Springer.com, this open access book contains two chapters that feature my work.

Chapter 15: Chris Meigh-Andrews, Digital Moving Image Installations and Renewable Energy: 1994–2018
Chapter 18: Dr Alan Summers: In Darwin’s Garden: An Evolutionary Exploration of Augmented Reality
in Practice

Further info and access

Strangelove Time Based Media Festival

My selection of works for the experimental film section of the Strangelove Time Based Media Festival goes “live” on June 22nd.

The selected artists and works in this programme are:

Andrew Demirjian (USA), Pan-terrestrial People’s Anthem (2018);Robert Cahen (France),Narsica Hirsch (Argentina) and Ruben Guzman (Argentina) Kosmos II (2020) ; Tessa Garland (UK) Legacy Warf (2020); Masayuki Kawai (Japan), Video Feedback Aleatoric No 12 (2018); Vince Briffa (Malta), Outland (2019);Madelon Hooykaas (The Netherlands), No Self (2019);Jacques Perconte (France), Albatre (2018);Stuart Moore & Kayla Parker (UK), On Location (2017); Visual Brains (Sei Kazama & Ohtsue Hatsune) (Japan), Dé sign 22 “La Matiére de mémoire #3” (2011) and Terry Flaxton (UK), Forest Glade (beneath the forest floor) (2020).

Further information and link to programme from June 22nd-June 29th, 2020.

Forthcoming Exhibition of Recent New work- Feb 14th-20th

I will be exhibiting four new sculpture/installations at the Benham Gallery, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester CO4 5HH.
The exhibition will run from Feb 14th to Feb 20th, Gallery open 10AM to 5PM daily.
The preview will be on Friday, Feb 14th from 6:30-8:30 PM.

Recently completed work

“The Sound of One Wheel Spinning (After Duchamp) “2019.

This recently completed sculptural sound piece is entitled “The Sound of One Wheel Spinning (After Duchamp)”. Over the past year I have been developing ideas for new works which are more purely sculptural, although still constructed from familiar domestic objects. This work makes a clear and direct reference to Marcel Duchamp’s famous Bicycle Wheel “readymade”, replacing the physical action required to rotate the wheel with a motorised control, whilst also adding a sonic element. Two children’s toy “exhaust systems” have been attached, so that the silent operation of the Duchampian wheel is now a thunderous roar.