Jon Thomson (born 1969) and Alison Craighead (born 1971) are

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

-based

visual artists The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and texti ...

, who work with

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the br ...

and the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

Life and work

Jon Thomson was born in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

and Alison Craighead in

Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. They have been working together with

and the

since 1993. Much of their work to date explores how technology changes the way we perceive the world around us. They use live data to make artworks, including "template cinema online artworks" and gallery installations, where networked movies are created in real time from online material such as remote-user security web cams, audio feeds and chat room text transcripts. Recently (as of 2008) they have made outdoor semi-permanent works, ''Decorative Newsfeeds'' and BEACON, where the emphasis is on live virtual information. In BEACON, data is projected onto gallery walls, interacting with viewers' physical space. In 2008 they made an animated documentary, ''Flat Earth'', where the voices of

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

gers found online are combined with

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

satellite imagery Satellite images (also Earth observation imagery, spaceborne photography, or simply satellite photo) are images of Earth collected by imaging satellites operated by governments and businesses around the world. Satellite imaging companies sell im ...

. In 2005 they won Arts Foundation award, and were fellows at the

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire. The program was founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDo ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

in Autumn 2004. Created by Thomson & Craighead, ''

Here Here may refer to: Music * ''Here'' (Adrian Belew album), 1994 * ''Here'' (Alicia Keys album), 2016 * ''Here'' (Cal Tjader album), 1979 * ''Here'' (Edward Sharpe album), 2012 * ''Here'' (Idina Menzel album), 2004 * ''Here'' (Merzbow album), ...

'' is a 2013 artwork formed by a standard 2.64m tall UK road sign pointing north from a riverside path in east London and displaying the 24,859 mile distance around the circumference of the earth back to the sign's position. Maggie Gray in art magazine ''Apollo'' said: "Such pieces command attention and, once they have it, direct that attention outwards to their surroundings, or back on to the viewer." In 2014, it was one of nine works chosen from over 70 submissions for ''The Line'', an art project distributed along a three-mile route following some of London's waterways between Stratford and North Greenwich. The route opened in 2015. Thomson is Professor of Fine Art at the

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

in London. Craighead is currently Reader at the

University of Westminster The University of Westminster is a public university, public university based in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1838 as the Royal Polytechnic Institution, it was the first Polytechnic (United Kingdom), polytechnic to open in London. The Po ...

, and also lectures in Fine Art at

Goldsmiths, University of London Goldsmiths, University of London, formerly Goldsmiths College, University of London, is a constituent research university of the University of London. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by ...

Exhibitions

Exhibitions include 'Maps DNA and Spam' at

Dundee Contemporary Arts Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) is an art centre in Dundee, Scotland, with two contemporary art galleries, a two-screen movie theater, cinema, a printmaking, print studio, a learning and public engagement programme, a shop and a café bar. The cur ...

; Never Odd nor even at Carroll / Fletcher Gallery London;

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in En ...

; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

SFMOMA The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art, and has b ...

; Laboral Art Centre in Gijon, Spain; Zentrum Kunst Media ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany;

The New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum at 235 Bowery, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-nam ...

, New York; Mejanlabs, Stockholm; Neuberger Museum of Art at Purchase, New York.

Notes and references

External links

Official website

Template Cinema online

Slade Centre for Electronic Media

Rhizome

Channel Four and Animate projects interviews Thomson & Craighead, 2007

Charlotte Frost interviews Thomson & Craighead for Rhizome, 2003
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomson and Craighead English artists British conceptual artists Academics of University College London Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Art duos Living people 1969 births 1971 births