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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.

River of Light

Liverpool Lantern Company is an artist-led organisation, producing and directing carnivals, arts festivals, one-off site-specific events and visual theatre. They also undertake sculptural commissions and installations and constantly seek inventive ways of using light within their work. At the heart of the company’s work is the development and promotion of artistic excellence along with a commitment to developing sustainable projects, which build skills and capacity in community members and promote creativity and celebration.

Wish Comet

Jana Matejkova was born in 1979 in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic. She studied a Masters in Sculpture in 2004 in Brno, Czech Republic, and has also studied at Düsseldorf Kuenstakademie and Akademie den Bildenden Kuenste in Munich and was a recipient of a DAAD Scholarship. She has lived and worked in Edinburgh since 2007. A sculptor and performer, Jana works with space, light and sound. She experiments with light and shade and creates artificial landscapes, usually as site-specific installations.

Ad Astra Per Aspera (Through Hardship to the Stars)

Verity is a theatre designer and maker based in London. She has a background in visual theatre and puppetry, installation and site specific performance. She has designed extensively on theatre for young audiences. Verity founded and co-ran the design-led theatre company, Left Luggage Theatre from 2007 – 2011 and she currently co-runs the visual theatre company Club Adelphi who are Associate Artists at ARC, Stockton. Verity was nominated for Best Set Design in the Off West End Theatre Awards for her work on ‘Alpha Beta’.

verityquinn.co.uk  

Bethan Maddocks is a visual artist based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, who creates site-specific, kinetic installations. Her work explores the internal movements and interior landscapes of the body. Using a variety of materials, she makes ephemeral installations with the aim to involve the audience with the work. Bethan’s practice is underpinned by drawing, sewing, paper cuts and structure making. Education and facilitation work is a key part of her practice, helping to develop ideas and commissions for new works.

bethanmaddocks.com

Fusion

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.

Pimp Pallets, 2006

David Batchelor’s work includes three-dimensional structures, photographs and drawings, and mostly relate to his long-term interest in colour and the urban environment. He uses a variety of industrial debris to create sculptural installations, breathing new life into the material leftovers of modern life, from factory scrap to disused or broken domestic items. Batchelor reworks these otherwise pedestrian objects into beautifully colourful artworks.

David Batchelor was born in Dundee in 1955 and lives and works in London. In 2013, a major solo exhibition of Batchelor’s two-dimensional work, Flatlands, was displayed at Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh and toured to Spike Island, Bristol. Batchelor’s work was included in the landmark group exhibition Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915 – 2015 at Whitechapel Gallery, London. A separate exhibition of Batchelor’s Monochrome Archive (1997-2015) was also on display at Whitechapel Gallery until May 2015.

His portfolio includes a number of major public artworks including a commission for the British Council headquarters in Hong Kong, a site-specific work for the McManus Galleries in Dundee, a 10-metre high light installation at the Archway Tube Station in London, and a major commission for St. Pancras International Station entitled Chromolocomotion.

Batchelor has written and edited a number of books including The Luminous and the Grey (2014), Found Monochromes (2010) and Colour (2008) and Chromophobia (2000).

Les Voyageurs (The Travellers)

Born in Paris in 1972, Le Borge studied arts at École Normale Supérieure de Cachan (1994 – 1998). 

Le Borge works with the real and from the real. He seeks to integrate his work within movement, time and space, a living context, without preconceived ideas on the nature of the spaces he works with: interiors, exteriors, hyper-centers, suburbs, wasteland… each have their own qualities… their own poetry, different dimensions, visible or invisible, to offer. 

The environment, in its vast and many faceted reality, offers an infinite field of exploration. Urban space, so mundane, also becomes a creative playground: here, more so than elsewhere, he is integrated in reality, his reality, in the reality of the city: sometimes beautiful, sometimes sordid. He wants to transcend it, but his statement is not uniquely aesthetic or sensitive, it is also social and political: the city is the territory of ‘living together’.

He wants to point to the contradictions, rub up against opinions, question consciences, but also invite encounters, dialogue, exchange.

Work No. 1086 – Everything Is Going To Be Alright

One of Turner prize-winning Martin Creed’s celebrated neon works, the words celebrate and question a familiar phrase.

“I want to make things. I’m not sure why, but I think it’s got something to do with other people. I think I want to try to communicate with other people, because I want to say “hullo”, because I want to express myself, and because I want to be loved”. – Martin Creed

Martin Creed was born in 1968 in Wakefield, England. From the age of three he lived in Glasgow, Scotland. Between 1986 and 1990 he studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. After art school he lived and worked in London until 2001, when he moved to Alicudi, Italy. In 2001 he was the winner of the Turner Prize.

He currently lives and works in London and Alicudi.

Will Be

Tim Etchells is an artist and a writer based in the UK whose work shifts between visual art, performance and fiction. He has worked in a wide variety of contexts, notably as the leader of the world-renowned Sheffield-based performance group Forced Entertainment. He is currently Professor of Performance & Writing at Lancaster University.

Brothers and Sisters

Ron Haselden is a British artist who creates light sculptures and architectural installations using neon, LEDs, film and video, drawing and painting. His work has travelled across Europe and appeared in a variety of locations including small mountain towns, public parks and even a disused shop in France.

LED’s Dance!

Dorota Kraft was born in 1984 in Gdynia, Poland and lives and works in Torun, Poland where she was a student of the Nicolaus Copernicus University. Dorota is interested in graphic design, animation, video art and her work has been shown at the 3rd International Festival of Art on Billboards and Skyway`10.

60 Second Cathedral

Dominik Lejman is a Polish artist who splits his time between Poznań, Gdynia and Berlin. His large-scale works aim to create a new kind of urban light-painting – a technique involving video projections onto buildings, transforming their façades into vibrant historical canvases. Lejman first attracted international attention with his innovative multiple layering of traditional paintings (often monochromatic) and video projections. Much of his recent work is designed to destabilise the viewer’s customary patterns of perception, heightening awareness of the way we instinctively create internal and external ‘security blankets’ that offer an illusory shield against the realities and dangers of life.

Global Curiosity Shop

Luma Labs were an audiovisual company based in Newcastle. Their ambition was to merge interactive visuals with architectural builds to create unique user experiences for use in the commercial world.

Their work included interactive elements such as bespoke user interfaces and real time visual applications alongside physical trade-show and exhibition stands, which established a bridge between the real world and the virtual.

A New Moon

Claire Morgan was born in Belfast and now lives in London. Since graduating in 2003, Claire has exhibited internationally, with solo exhibitions in the UK and Europe, and museum shows in US and Australia.

After showing sculptures at Palais de Tokyo and Fiac in 2009, Claire unveiled her first solo exhibition in France. Recent exhibitions of note include Dead Or Alive, (MAD, New York), on&on, (La Casa Encendida, Madrid), Monanism, (MONA, Tasmania), and Bestes, Bestiaux, et Bestioles, where a new large-scale sculpture was commissioned by Château D’Oiron, France.

I Love Durham

Jacques Rival is a French artist and architect that uses different design tools to create surprising urban installations. The purpose of his work is to encourage the public to explore unknown areas and enrich everyday life by adding a hint of the unexpected.

Durham Bridges

Martin is the Director of Hi-Lights, who started life as a theatrical lighting hire company, but twenty five years on is now one of the leading suppliers of lighting, sound, staging and audio visual equipment in the region. Their work includes conferences, product launches, award dinners, celebrations and outdoor events, from the tall Ships’ Race to the annual Stockton International Riverside Festival. Other clients include BALTIC, Centre for Contemporary Art, BBC, CIPR, Nova International and Siemens.

Festival, 2006

David Batchelor’s work includes three-dimensional structures, photographs and drawings, and mostly relate to his long-term interest in colour and the urban environment. He uses a variety of industrial debris to create sculptural installations, breathing new life into the material leftovers of modern life, from factory scrap to disused or broken domestic items. Batchelor reworks these otherwise pedestrian objects into beautifully colourful artworks.

David Batchelor was born in Dundee in 1955 and lives and works in London. In 2013, a major solo exhibition of Batchelor’s two-dimensional work, Flatlands, was displayed at Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh and toured to Spike Island, Bristol. Batchelor’s work was included in the landmark group exhibition Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915 – 2015 at Whitechapel Gallery, London. A separate exhibition of Batchelor’s Monochrome Archive (1997-2015) was also on display at Whitechapel Gallery until May 2015.

His portfolio includes a number of major public artworks including a commission for the British Council headquarters in Hong Kong, a site-specific work for the McManus Galleries in Dundee, a 10-metre high light installation at the Archway Tube Station in London, and a major commission for St. Pancras International Station entitled Chromolocomotion.

Batchelor has written and edited a number of books including The Luminous and the Grey (2014), Found Monochromes (2010) and Colour (2008) and Chromophobia (2000).

Spirit

Carabosse are one of France’s most important street arts groups, transforming streets and parks into flickering artworks that remind us of the most basic and elemental human need. Carabosse have performed all over the world, delighting thousands of visitors from Edinburgh to Brighton with installations that inspire awe and reverence in equal measure.

Rainbow

Dan Ziglam and Elliot Brook graduated from Northumbria University’s ‘Three Dimensional Design’ course in July 2003. The design entrepreneurs soon set about forming Deadgood with a vision to develop an internationally recognised British design brand. Their first range of furniture ‘The Form Collection’ was launched in 2005 and instantly gained industry recognition, winning awards from the Crafts Council and One Year On. Since then Ziglam & Brook have showcased their work at various exhibitions across the world, including exhibitions in New York, London, Cologne, Paris, Stockholm, Milan and Newcastle. They continue to develop exciting new products working
 closely with a network of specialist manufacturers across the UK.

Capitalism Kills (Love)

Claire Fontaine is a Paris-based collective, founded in 2004. After lifting the name of a popular brand of school notebooks, Claire Fontaine declared herself a “readymade artist” and began to elaborate a version of neo-conceptual art that often looks like other people’s work. Together they have responded to global events and political systems by producing a series of powerful artworks that address their perception of the inequalities and injustices of modern life.  They have exhibited burned slogans in galleries, handed out Instructions for the Sharing of Private Property through video tutorials and produced limited-edition lock picks.

Viaduct

Hi-Lights started life as a theatrical lighting hire company, but twenty five years on is now one of the leading suppliers of lighting, sound, staging and audio visual equipment in the region. Their work includes conferences, product launches, award dinners, celebrations and outdoor events, from the tall Ships’ Race to the annual Stockton International Riverside Festival. Other clients include BALTIC, Centre for Contemporary Art, BBC, CIPR, Nova International and Siemens.

Binary Waves

Brussels-based art-studio LAb[au] (laboratory for architecture and urbanism) was founded in 1997 by Manuel Abendroth, Els Vermang and Jerome Decock. LAb[au]’s work is part of public and private art collections worldwide and has been exhibited across the world. The technological developments of the past 40 years have given rise to a major shift from the industrial to the post-industrial information society. This technological progress inspires LAb[au] to examine the transformation of architecture, art and design.

Splash

Peter Lewis was born in South Wales and studied at St Martin’s School of Art in London before emigrating to Canada in the 1970s.  After numerous solo exhibitions, he began to work with landscape and has completed several ambitious projects in North America. As well as the Great Divide waterfall, he is also known for giving a unique wedding gift to Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in the form of more than 1,200 bonfires from Scotland to the Channel Islands. Architectural projects have included work for Clive Piercy and Cowichan Tribes in British Colombia. At his home in Vancover Island, Peter built the Bright Angel Garden, a 10-acre water garden that includes a 2-acre lake, 14 fountains and the largest prayer wheel in North America.

Hartmann Grid

Leonardo Meigas is a product and graphic designer working in his design studio Leonardo Design in Tallinn. Meigas’s graphic design, posters, installations and product design have been displayed in numerous exhibitions and fairs across Europe. Meigas’s most recent work is an interior design project for the Tallinn City Museum. His largest light installation “AEG” (“Time”) was presented in 1999/2000: a steel construction on the central town square of Tallinn and a huge laser clock, mounted into the building of the City Council.

Plenum

Rob Godman (Soundtrack)

Nick Rothwell (Coding)

Simeon Nelson is a sculptor, new media and interdisciplinary artist interested in convergences between science, religion and art, complexity theory and relationships between art, architecture urban sites and the natural world.

After establishing himself as an artist in Australia and Asia in the 1990s, he moved to London in 2001 and is currently working on projects in Africa, Australia, Europe and the UK. He was a Finalist in the National Gallery of Australia’s National Sculpture Prize in 2005 and a Finalist in the 2003 Jerwood Sculpture Prize. Passages, a monograph on his work was published by The University of New South Wales Press, Sydney in 2000.

simeon-nelson.com

Rob Godman is a composer, sound designer and programmer. He is Reader in Music at the University of Hertfordshire. As well as creating installation audio works he regularly performs live, focusing on a transparent relationship between technology, audience and performer.

robgodman.com

Nick Rothwell is a composer, performer, software architect, programmer and sound artist. He has built media performance systems for projects with Ballett Frankfurt and Vienna Volksoper (choreographer: Michael Klien) and Braunarts, and interactive installations for Sonic Arts Network, TECHNE (Istanbul) and the Kinetica kinetic art fair (London). He has worked at STEIM (Amsterdam), CAMAC (Paris) and ZKM (Karlsruhe) and has composed soundtracks for choreographers Aydin Teker (Istanbul) and Richard Siegal (Laban Centre), and performed with Laurie Booth (Dance Umbrella, New Territories), and at the Different Skies Festival (Arcosanti, Arizona), the ICA, and the Science Museum’s Dana Centre.
cassiel.com

Liquid Space

Engaging in a world shifting from analogue to digital, Studio Roosegaarde is the social design lab of the Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde and his team of designers and engineers. The studio creates interactive designs exploring the dynamic relation between people, technology and space. It develops its own innovations and is internationally known for interactive projects such as Dune, Smart Highway and Waterlicht. Roosegaarde has been the focus of exhibitions at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Tate Modern, the Tokyo National Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and won numerous international innovation awards. Studio Roosegaarde also has a vast experience in public space commissions for the cities of Rotterdam, Singapore, Eindhoven and Stockholm. Studio Roosegaarde has studios in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and Shanghai, China.

Lightwriting

Creative director Richard Wolfströme is an award-winning designer, with over 28 years’ experience. Interested in furthering information graphic design and typography by continually challenging the technical and creative disciplines, his primary strength lies in determining how to communicate information optimally across different media – from print to screen to installation.

Ira Lightman is a conceptual poet. He has published several chapbooks and a full-length e-book. Ira’s work is informed by music, mathematics, language-learning, computers and pattern-seeking. Many of his published essays touch on improvisation and the vexed question of free verse for our times. He has also made conceptual pieces for national radio. Since 2000, when he moved to the North-East and started a family, he tried unsuccessfully to become a vicar, and then started making Public Art. In Spennymoor, he devised the Spennymoor Letters, letter shaped sculptures spelling the town’s name like the Hollywood sign.