Biography

"Post Pansonic uppercase electronica" The Wire magazine, Nov, 2008

 

“The Owl Project are a wonderful combination of inventiveness, precision, lateral thinking and single-minded quirkiness” Tim Marlow, White Cube Gallery 2009

 

Owl Project is a collaborative group of artists consisting of Simon Blackmore, Antony Hall and Steve Symons. They work with wood and electronics to fuse sculpture and sound art, creating music making machines, interfaces and objects which intermix pre-steam and digital technologies.

 
Drawing on influences such as 70’s synthesiser culture, DIY woodworking and current digital crafts, the resulting artwork is a quirky and intriguing critique of the allure and production of technology. Owl Project make a distinctive range of musical and sculptural instruments that question human interaction with computer interfaces and our increasing appetite for new and often disposable technologies.
 

By choosing wood as the main material for the iLog, Owl Project have extracted modern design principles but deflected it back to a traditional sensibility. This immediately raises questions about modern desire for disposable technology and nostalgia surrounding traditional crafts.

 

In 2009, working in collaboration with Ed Carter, they won a major commission to create ‘~Flow’ a floating tidal waterwheel powered  electro acoustic musical instrument responding to the river. It was one of twelve extraordinary public art commissions for ‘Artists Taking the Lead’ celebrating the 2012 Olympic Games, installed on the River Tyne, Newcastle, floating oposite Baltic Mill  for 6 months attracted over 50,000 visitors

 

Owl Project have performed and exhibited internationally, Highlights of 2013 included a commission by' Mid Pennine Arts' to make 'K-scope' a site specific installation at Turton Tower, Blackburn, and solo show at Bildmuseet Umea, Sweden. Sound Lathe continues to be shown as part of Sound Matters a touring show curated by the crafts council. 2014 will see newly commissioned works for ‘Barnaby Arts Festival’ and a residency project at ‘Manchester Natural History Museum’. The project is organised by Invisible Dust, who's Director Alice Sharp is a Honorary Research Associate at the Museum.

 
 
Previous performances include at Les Urbaines Festival (Lausanne, Switzerland), SARC, (Belfast, Ireland) as part of ISEA 2009, and a solo show at Lydgalleriet, Bergen, Norway, 2008. Sound Lathe 2005 installation/performance became headline act at the Sonic Arts Network EXPO 2006 event in Manchester. In 2007 Owl Project were commissioned by Lovebytes, Sheffield. Sound Lathe was shortlisted & exhibited for the SHARE prize (Torino, IT) 2008. In 2009 they won Urbis's  'Best of Manchester Award'. 

 

 

Contemporary Heritage: K-Scope from Mid Pennine Arts documentary by Ben Wigley

iLogs
The Owl Project have designed the iLog to echo contemporary products such as iPods and advanced mobile phones. The iLog's expose these technological products with their plastic techno-packaging, to lack traditional craft and to be disturbingly disposable.
 
After launching the original iLog in 2005 a new range of iLogs were shown at Futuresonic (Manchester UK) 2006, and then at Digital Wellbeing Labs (London) and have been used in performances at "Musikprotokoll" (Graz AU), TEKS Trondhiem Norway) & the Serpentine Gallery stage, London 2008. In 2008 they were awarded an Arts Council funding to radically redevelop the iLog & m-Log technology. They worked with artists, Leafcutter John, Kaffe Mathews , & Thor Magnusson (ixi software) to develop new m-Logs at FACT, Liverpool and Space studios, London in 2009.
 
 
Owl Project consists of Simon Blackmore and Antony Hall and Steve Symons. All 3 artists have wide ranging individual practices concerning art, science and technology.
 
 
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