THOMSON & CRAIGHEAD

Jon Thomson was born in London in 1969 and Alison Craighead was born in scotland in 1971. They have been working together since 1993 and they are artists that use video, sound and the internet to show how we view the world in this technological filled world. They use real time feeds in their art work. Such as from a search ingine or from a chat room and input these feeds into their art. Thomson teaches at the spade school of fine art in London and Craighead is a teacher at Goldsmiths University in London.

Decorative Newsfeed: This piece was created in 2009 and much like the Flat World and many of their other pieces they use a live feed of news headlines. These headlines come in and a projected onto a screen and the headlines move around forming different shapes. They can move in smooth beautiful formations or in sharp shapes. Can you imagine seeing the headline " Dozens of American soldiers wounded in Iran"  in a beautiful graceful swirl shape. This kinda reminds me of somebody yelling at you but they have a smile on their face. So i thought this piece was really interesting.

http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/decnews.html


Flat World:This piece was created in 2008, the first time i watched this i watched it on my little 10 inch laptop and for some reason my heart was pounding quite fast. This Flat World piece is a series of satellite shots from all over the world, and integrated is the voice of different peoples blogs. This piece has the voice of people all around the world from a young girl who is confused about life and cant wait to grow up. She has small problems but sees them as the biggest problems in the world. To a man who hasn't had sex in 1665 days. To a woman living in Iran constantly living in fear of a bombing. Never being able to let her guard down, she even has trouble sleeping. To a man fool of philosophical questions. This piece really made me feel something i don't know what but it was something.

  http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/flat_earth.html


Beacon : The Beacon first started broadcasting at midnight January 1, 2005. What this is, is a live ffed of things that people are searching on the web and it is projected onto a screen in a gallery. there is also an online version that can be seen anytime. This piece is really interesting because it gives you an insight of what people are searching up on the web, but you will never know who that person is. It broadcasts searches from all around the world in real time. It lets you go into the mind of the searcher and lets you create your own story about that person. You can come up with your own conclusion of what that person is like just by seeing that one word on the projection. You will never know who he or she is or why they are searching what they are searching, but you can let your imagination run wild, and isnt that the true meaning of art? To let the audience come up with their own story behind the piece.

http://www.tate.org.uk/40artists40days/thomson_craighead.html