Complex Meshes 2015

Miguel Chevalier is a pioneer of digital and virtual art. His works are enriched by the public spaces that welcome them, from his ‘Magic Carpets’ which draw passers-by into their evolving shapes and megapixels, to his suspended, inflatable ‘Digital Constellations’ which make mosaics as light as bubbles.

Change Your Stripes

Irish born but now living in Paris, Anne Cleary and Dennis Connolly use innovative new technologies to produce their work.  They like to use the term ‘observer participation’ when describing their work as they are interested in developing the active role everyone can play in art. In 2009, they were awarded the AIB prize, which identifies emerging Irish visual artists, and in the same year they were the first, and so far only, Irish artists to have a solo exhibition at the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

1.26 Durham

Janet Echelman sculpts at the scale of buildings and city blocks. Echelman’s work defies categorization, as it intersects Sculpture, Architecture, Urban Design, Material Science, Structural & Aeronautical Engineering, and Computer Science. Echelman’s art transforms with wind and light, and shifts from being “an object you look at, into an experience you can get lost in.”

Using unlikely materials from atomized water particles to engineered fiber fifteen times stronger than steel, Echelman combines ancient craft with computational design software to create artworks that have become focal points for urban life on five continents, from Singapore, Sydney, Shanghai, and Santiago, to Beijing, Boston, New York and London.  Permanent works in Porto, Vancouver, San Francisco, West Hollywood, Phoenix, Eugene, Greensboro, Philadelphia, and Seattle transform daily with colored light.   

Curiosity defines Janet Echelman’s nonlinear educational path. After graduating from Harvard College, she lived in a Balinese village for 5 years, then completed separate graduate programs in Painting and in Psychology. A recipient of an honorary Doctorate from Tufts University, Echelman has taught at MIT, Harvard and Princeton Universities.

Her TED talk “Taking Imagination Seriously” has been translated into 35 languages with more than two million views. Recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, Harvard Loeb Fellowship, Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellowship, and Fulbright Sr. Lectureship, Echelman received the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award in Visual Arts, honoring “the greatest innovators in America today.” In popular culture, Oprah ranked Echelman’s work #1 on her List of 50 Things That Make You Say Wow!, and Echelman was named an Architectural Digest Innovator for “changing the very essence of urban spaces.”

Helvetictoc

Originally a professional jazz drummer, Tobie Langel accidentally turned web developer some time ago and is now a software engineer at Facebook, which he also represents at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Although his minor in fine arts is the only thing he managed to complete before dropping out of college, Tobie Langel has no formal artistic training.

Helvetictoc is a permanent artwork in Millennium Place, Durham.

Wheels of Industry

Wave

Rainbow River

Both Lowery and Hornby have backgrounds in science.  Richard moved to Durham in 2004 to study Physics and Astronomy at the university.  Since then he has developed his own educational consultancy business and is Chair of the North East Branch of the Institute of Physics.  Alison originally trained as a doctor, specialising in psychiatry, but since retiring has completed a degree in Photography, Video and Digital Imaging and an MA in Glass both at the University of Sunderland.

Big Knitting

Mixed media textile artist, Victoria, has previously exhibited at the DLI, the Captain Cook Museum, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool Art Gallery, Durham Cathedral, Woodhorn Colliery and other private galleries. She set up the Durham City branch of the Embroiderers’ Guild and is currently chair of the North East region.

The Stars Beneath Our Feet

Louise Mackenzie is a UK based artist working across installation, sound, sculpture, performance and film.  She creates artworks that explore themes of production, waste and our relationship with the environment. Recent work has focused on what Louise terms ‘lively material’ such as DNA, viruses and single-celled micro-organisms that exist on the boundary of what we traditionally consider as life.

Supercube

French artist Stéphane Masson has been hijacking every day objects for art projects since 2004. Devoted to injecting craziness into our everyday lives, his previous works include The Aquarium Car (La Voiture Aquarium), Kissing Lamps (Les Lampadiares a Bisous) and interactive video recording The Box of Words.

DOT

Philippe Morvan is a stage designer who enjoys working in the public sphere, creating temporary light shows featuring light and sound machines that play with the audiences’ emotions. His work draws inspiration from theatre and cinema for which he also creates sets, as well as from the music that drives his projects. Philippe Morvan’s installations have travelled all over the world.

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Simon Corder is a London based designer. His practice embraces lighting for performance, set & production design, light-art, zoo design, event production, lighting for exhibitions, and photography.

Fujiko Nakaya is best known for her fog sculptures, ephemeral and immersive installations that have been transforming public spaces and structures for nearly 50 years. Nakaya’s innovative use of fog as a sculptural medium emerged during her involvement with E.A.T. (Experiments in Art and Technology). This global initiative promoting collaboration between artists and engineers was a perfect fit for Nakaya, a painter with a preoccupation for natural phenomena and the daughter of Ukichiro Nakaya, a physicist known for his work in glaciology and low-temperature sciences. As Tokyo representative for the group, Nakaya produced the world’s first fog sculpture for Expo ’70 in Osaka, shrouding the roof of the Pepsi pavilion with simulated fog.

Fool's Paradise

NOVAK are an award-winning creative studio based in Newcastle upon Tyne, specialising in motion design and immersive experiences. Their spectacular large-scale projection mapping works are rooted in the historical narratives of the sites they transform. They also create stunning 2D and 3D motion design for television, web broadcast and celebrated musicians. NOVAK have created works including 195 Piccadilly (2016), a projection using famous faces from the BAFTA archives for Lumiere London and Avenue (2018), a 65m projection for Northern Lights, Hull.

Les Luminéoles

Porté par le vent take inspiration from light and the elements for their beautiful creations, transforming everyday locations into atmospheric dreamlands. 

I Haven't Changed my Mind in a Thousand Years

Beth originally studied in Durham before returning to live there for 12 years and completing a degree in Fine Art at Newcastle College. She now lives and works in Vienna with her family. She has exhibited widely across the UK and in Austria.

Home Sweet Home

Shared Space & Light are dedicated to pushing the creative boundaries of video mapping. The team is comprised of  award-winning artist, Chris Grottick, designer Giles Thacker, who specialises in site specific designs and Katie Laird, a creative producer. Their work actively encourage direct participation from the general public in an attempt to blur the boundaries between ‘artist’ and ‘audience’.

Litre of Light

Mick Stephenson has a track record of turning rubbish into beautiful illuminated art. His Litre of Light – Rose Window installation for Lumiere Durham 2015 attracted thousands of visitors to Durham Cathedral Cloisters. The piece was later reworked for Lumiere London 2018. Mick also created Litre of Light – London for Lumiere London 2016, for a collaborative project with Central Saint Martins’ students and MyShelter Foundation.

Lightbench

Bernd Spiecker produced his first bench in 1982 using acrylic material. He has since developed the idea of the Lightbench as a symbol of community. He plans to build 100 across the world in the hope that they will bring people from all backgrounds together.

Precious

The New Zealand based company Storybox collaborated with students from Durham Sixth Form Centre to record interviews with people from across the County, asking them about the objects that meant something to them. Holding regular tutorials over Skype with Storybox, developing their camera and interview skills in the process, the final piece was projected onto a series of storage containers.

Since 2010, creative production studio Storybox have been using innovative methods to engage with audiences through storytelling with expertise that spans video, digital, installation, projection and graphic design, they strive to create content that both entertains, informs, provokes and surprises.

Garden of Light

TILT is a French collective that reclaim public space for their art. They create luminous, dreamlike structures using recycled materials processed to high technical production quality.

Founders François Fouilhé and Jean-Baptiste Laude started the collective to give prominence to light art and to encourage audiences to view it from a new perspective.

Mysticète

Catherine Garret is Creative Director of the design agency, Top’là Design, who work on the conception and realisation of cultural projects events, scenography and art installations.

The Red House

Renowned across the world for his Chromolithe Polychromatic Illumination System, Warrener has created more than 60 chromolithe installations over the last fifteen years, lighting up buildings in close to a dozen different nations.

Neon Bikes

Born and raised in Darlington, Robyn had just completed her degree in Graphic Design at Cleveland College of Art and Design when she applied for BRILLIANT. Normally interested in print design, applying to BRILLIANT gave her the chance to experiment and think on a bigger scale.