Simon Faithfull
Encyclopedia
Simon Faithfull is an English artist based in Berlin
and London
. His work has been widely exhibited in both international solo and group exhibitions, including The British Film Institute
Gallery, London; Haus am Waldsee, Berlin; CRAC Alsace
, France
, Stills, Edinburgh
; and the 52nd Venice Biennale
in 2007 as part of ArtSway’s New Forest Pavilion.
Fellowship to travel to Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey
. The journey began in November 2004 and lasted for two months. During this journey, Faithfull made daily drawings on a PalmPilot
recording the daily events and sights of a journey ever further south. As with other drawing projects, these sketches were then relayed back to the world via email. In this case 3,000 people around the world received a live drawn message from end of the world.
Simon Faithfull’s practice often involves elements of failure
and anti-heroism. His works revolve around research and experiments, and during the course of the past few years he has become known for his Lecture Performances that will often accompany his exhibitions. He is cited as trying to measure the world in order to check whether it exists and whether, when absent, he also still exists.
Journeys and traveling are central to his practice, whether it involves the end of the world, outer space, or a simple bike ride, they offer crucial material for Faithfull. Influences include Smithson and Richard Long
.
In 2006, Simon Faithfull released LOST (as part of a Whitstable Biennale 2006 commission), a book that catalogues the objects lost by the artist during the course of his lifetime, alongside the stories that accompany these losses. 500 of the books were left around Whitstable as part of an ongoing web project, as their finders are encouraged to record their discoveries before re-releasing them back into the world.
In a series of experiments conducted over ten years (1995–2005), Faithfull sought to defy gravity with his ‘Escape vehicles’. Seven in total to date, these Escape Vehicles range from the use of balloons, chairs, insects, and rockets. Escape Vehicle no.6 saw a domestic chair travel from the earth to the edge of space. An audience first witnessed the chair, tethered beneath a weather balloon, disappear into the sky and then watched a live video transmission from the vehicle showing the chair reaching an altitude of 30 km high. Seen against the blackness of space and the curvature of the earth the chair finally broke up at the edge of space.
Simon Faithfull is represented by Parker’s Box, New York
, and Galerie Polaris, Paris. He is also an ArtSway Associate.
Other researchers included Esther Polak (Amsterdam
), Aug Annika Lundgren (Gothenburg
/Berlin), Martin John Callanan (London), Katie Paterson (London), Nick Crowe & Ian Rawlinson (Manchester
/Berlin), Tim Knowles (London).
. Any obstacle encountered is negotiated—fences climbed, properties crossed, buildings entered via nearest windows or apertures, streams waded, motorways traversed. The figure gradually makes its way up through southeast Britain, through London, the Midlands
and ultimately where the line re-enters the water in the north of Britain the figure slowly swims away into the North Sea
.
on their research vessel, . This tied in with Faithfull’s Antarctica Dispatches—the initial ‘live’ drawing project undertaken during the two-month journey. Prior to each of the exhibition openings, Faithfull delivered the Ice Blink lecture in a nearby theatre, drawing on the material he had collected during the course of the journey to illustrate a meandering journey through the myths of polar exploration.
and launched into space. Commissioned by The Arts Catalyst as part of the Artists' Airshow 2004. Footage is relayed back to earth as the live audience watches the chair travel 30 km away from the ground and into the edge of space. In 2009 to coincide with his solo exhibition, Gravity Sucks, at the BFI Southbank
.
as seen by a video camera attached to a weather balloon. The film starts with the artist's face and then, after releasing the balloon, the shot pulls out, and out until the figure has disappeared into the English landscape. The film end with a glimpse of the curve of the earth and black space.
, London. The drawings were then forwarded on to an open list of subscribers as well as progressively inhabiting the gallery in a variety of forms.
attached to the chair with fuse wire.
(UK) to Liverpool (Nova Scotia
), traveling by container ship
, train
and bus
. The artist recorded the everyday minutia of the journey— recording the historic paths of trade and exodus. A total of 181 drawings were made and etched into the stone paving and glass of a new public site in Liverpool (UK).
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. His work has been widely exhibited in both international solo and group exhibitions, including The British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
Gallery, London; Haus am Waldsee, Berlin; CRAC Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Stills, Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
; and the 52nd Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
in 2007 as part of ArtSway’s New Forest Pavilion.
Biography
He was the first visual artist to receive an Arts Council EnglandArts Council England
Arts Council England was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three separate bodies for England, Scotland and Wales. It is a non-departmental public body of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport...
Fellowship to travel to Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey
British Antarctic Survey
The British Antarctic Survey is the United Kingdom's national Antarctic operation and has an active role in Antarctic affairs. BAS is part of the Natural Environment Research Council and has over 400 staff. It operates five research stations, two ships and five aircraft in and around Antarctica....
. The journey began in November 2004 and lasted for two months. During this journey, Faithfull made daily drawings on a PalmPilot
PalmPilot
The PalmPilot Personal and PalmPilot Professional are the second generation of Palm PDA devices produced by Palm Inc...
recording the daily events and sights of a journey ever further south. As with other drawing projects, these sketches were then relayed back to the world via email. In this case 3,000 people around the world received a live drawn message from end of the world.
Simon Faithfull’s practice often involves elements of failure
Failure
Failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success. Product failure ranges from failure to sell the product to fracture of the product, in the worst cases leading to personal injury, the province of forensic...
and anti-heroism. His works revolve around research and experiments, and during the course of the past few years he has become known for his Lecture Performances that will often accompany his exhibitions. He is cited as trying to measure the world in order to check whether it exists and whether, when absent, he also still exists.
Journeys and traveling are central to his practice, whether it involves the end of the world, outer space, or a simple bike ride, they offer crucial material for Faithfull. Influences include Smithson and Richard Long
Richard Long
-English political figures:*Richard Long , Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Henry VIII; knighted in 1537; MP for Southwark...
.
In 2006, Simon Faithfull released LOST (as part of a Whitstable Biennale 2006 commission), a book that catalogues the objects lost by the artist during the course of his lifetime, alongside the stories that accompany these losses. 500 of the books were left around Whitstable as part of an ongoing web project, as their finders are encouraged to record their discoveries before re-releasing them back into the world.
In a series of experiments conducted over ten years (1995–2005), Faithfull sought to defy gravity with his ‘Escape vehicles’. Seven in total to date, these Escape Vehicles range from the use of balloons, chairs, insects, and rockets. Escape Vehicle no.6 saw a domestic chair travel from the earth to the edge of space. An audience first witnessed the chair, tethered beneath a weather balloon, disappear into the sky and then watched a live video transmission from the vehicle showing the chair reaching an altitude of 30 km high. Seen against the blackness of space and the curvature of the earth the chair finally broke up at the edge of space.
Simon Faithfull is represented by Parker’s Box, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, and Galerie Polaris, Paris. He is also an ArtSway Associate.
Mobile Research Station no.1, 2009
Mobile Research Station was a project commissioned by SKULPTURENPARK BERLIN_ZENTRUM in 2009, that took place in the centre of Berlin, between Seydelstr and Beuthstr. Half hi-tech Antarctic Research Station and half rusty broken-dumpster, this unit created by Faithfull provided a station for a group of artists/researchers to investigate the surrounding wilderness and urban zones in Berlin.Other researchers included Esther Polak (Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
), Aug Annika Lundgren (Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...
/Berlin), Martin John Callanan (London), Katie Paterson (London), Nick Crowe & Ian Rawlinson (Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
/Berlin), Tim Knowles (London).
0º00 Navigation, 2008
A black and white film that shows an absurd journey made exactly along the Greenwich Meridian. Always seen from behind, a figure swims out of the seawater where the meridian hits the south-coast of Britain. The solitary person emerges out of the water carrying a hand held GPS device. Using this implement the figure then proceeds to walk directly north along the 0º00 line of longitudeLongitude
Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth's surface. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds, and denoted by the Greek letter lambda ....
. Any obstacle encountered is negotiated—fences climbed, properties crossed, buildings entered via nearest windows or apertures, streams waded, motorways traversed. The figure gradually makes its way up through southeast Britain, through London, the Midlands
English Midlands
The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...
and ultimately where the line re-enters the water in the north of Britain the figure slowly swims away into the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
.
Ice Blink, 2005
Ice Blink was a lecture, exhibition and book commissioned by The Arts Catalyst that collected together the body of work made during a two-month journey to Antarctica in 2004/2005, traveling with the British Antarctic SurveyBritish Antarctic Survey
The British Antarctic Survey is the United Kingdom's national Antarctic operation and has an active role in Antarctic affairs. BAS is part of the Natural Environment Research Council and has over 400 staff. It operates five research stations, two ships and five aircraft in and around Antarctica....
on their research vessel, . This tied in with Faithfull’s Antarctica Dispatches—the initial ‘live’ drawing project undertaken during the two-month journey. Prior to each of the exhibition openings, Faithfull delivered the Ice Blink lecture in a nearby theatre, drawing on the material he had collected during the course of the journey to illustrate a meandering journey through the myths of polar exploration.
Escape Vehicle No.6, 2004
A domestic chair is attached to a weather balloonWeather balloon
A weather or sounding balloon is a balloon which carries instruments aloft to send back information on atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed by means of a small, expendable measuring device called a radiosonde...
and launched into space. Commissioned by The Arts Catalyst as part of the Artists' Airshow 2004. Footage is relayed back to earth as the live audience watches the chair travel 30 km away from the ground and into the edge of space. In 2009 to coincide with his solo exhibition, Gravity Sucks, at the BFI Southbank
BFI Southbank
BFI Southbank is the leading repertory cinema in the UK specialising in seasons of classic, independent and non-English language films and is operated by the British Film Institute.-History:...
.
30 km, 2003
A journey into the stratosphereStratosphere
The stratosphere is the second major layer of Earth's atmosphere, just above the troposphere, and below the mesosphere. It is stratified in temperature, with warmer layers higher up and cooler layers farther down. This is in contrast to the troposphere near the Earth's surface, which is cooler...
as seen by a video camera attached to a weather balloon. The film starts with the artist's face and then, after releasing the balloon, the shot pulls out, and out until the figure has disappeared into the English landscape. The film end with a glimpse of the curve of the earth and black space.
Orbital No.1, 2002
Three London circular journeys were recorded in real time and combined into a single, hypnotic, projected circular image. The circular journeys were: the M25 Orbital Motorway, the North and South Circular, and the Circle Line.Half-life & Half-life Attachments, 2001
Each day a drawing on a palm-pilot was made somewhere in E1, London, and e-mailed back to the Whitechapel GalleryWhitechapel Gallery
The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, it was founded in 1901 as one of the first publicly-funded galleries for temporary exhibitions in London, and it has a long...
, London. The drawings were then forwarded on to an open list of subscribers as well as progressively inhabiting the gallery in a variety of forms.
Escape Vehicle No.2, 1996
A miniature chair made from spent matches and powered by three dead blue bottlesBlue bottle fly
The blue bottle fly or bottlebee is a common blow-fly found in most areas of the world and is the type species for the genus Calliphora.-Description:...
attached to the chair with fuse wire.
Liverpool to Liverpool, 2010
In 2009, Simon Faithfull made a journey from LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
(UK) to Liverpool (Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
), traveling by container ship
Container ship
Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport.-History:...
, train
Train
A train is a connected series of vehicles for rail transport that move along a track to transport cargo or passengers from one place to another place. The track usually consists of two rails, but might also be a monorail or maglev guideway.Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate...
and bus
Bus
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...
. The artist recorded the everyday minutia of the journey— recording the historic paths of trade and exodus. A total of 181 drawings were made and etched into the stone paving and glass of a new public site in Liverpool (UK).
Education
- 1994-1996 Master of Fine Art, Reading University, UK
- 1986-1989 BA First Class Honours, Central St Martins School of Art, London, UK
Exhibitions
- 2010 Recent Findings: Simon Faithfull, Harris MuseumHarris MuseumThe Harris Museum, Art Gallery & Preston Free Public Library is a Grade I listed museum building in Preston and has the largest gallery space in Lancashire, England.- History :...
, Preston, UK - 2010 Voyages Extraordinaires: Simon Faithfull & Christoph Keller - CRAC Alsace, France
- 2009 Gravity Sucks, British Film Institute Gallery, London, UK
- 2009 Simon Faithfull & Carla Guagliardi - Schwerlos. Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
- 2008 Simon Faithfull - Selected Video Works, Gallerie Polaris, Paris, France
- 2006 Ice Blink, Parker's Box, New York, USA
- 2006 Ice Blink, Stills, Edinbugh, ScotlandScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, UK - 2006 Ice Blink, Cell, London, UK
- 2005 Antarctica Dispatches, CCA, GlasgowGlasgowGlasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, UK (+screens at: ICAInstitute of Contemporary ArtsThe Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
, Southampton City Gallery) - 2004 Hard Drive, ICA (digital studio), London, UK
- 2004 Vanishing Point - Pump House, BatterseaBatterseaBattersea is an area of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is an inner-city district of South London, situated on the south side of the River Thames, 2.9 miles south-west of Charing Cross. Battersea spans from Fairfield in the west to Queenstown in the east...
, London, UK - 2004 30 km, Film and Video Umbrella Commission - Aspex Gallery, PortsmouthPortsmouthPortsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
, UK - 2003 Dreamland, Turner Contemporary, MargateMargate-Demography:As of the 2001 UK census, Margate had a population of 40,386.The ethnicity of the town was 97.1% white, 1.0% mixed race, 0.5% black, 0.8% Asian, 0.6% Chinese or other ethnicity....
, UK - 2003 Terrestrial Investigation #256, SPACE, London, UK
- 2002 Simon Faithfull & Bruno Peinado, Parker's Box, New York, USA
- 2002 Dogends, Transit Space, London, UK
- 2002 Psychotopography, ArtSway, HampshireHampshireHampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, UK