Chris Meigh-Andrews is a video artist, writer and curator from

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

, England, whose work often includes elements of renewable energy technology in tandem with moving image and sound. He is currently Professor Emeritus in Electronic & Digital Art at the University of Central Lancashire and Visiting Professor at the Centre for Moving image Research (CMIR) at the

University of the West of England The University of the West of England (also known as UWE Bristol) is a public research university, located in and around Bristol, England. The institution was know as the Bristol Polytechnic in 1970; it received university status in 1992 and ...

Education and early career

Born in Essex, England on 30 July 1952, Meigh-Andrews lived in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

, Canada from 1957-75. Upon his return to England, he studied photography, film & video at the

London College of Printing The London College of Communication is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. It specialises in media-related subjects including advertising, animation, film, graphic design, photography and sound arts. It has approximately ...

. His first art exhibition was part of the group photography show ''New British Image'' at Newcastle's Side Gallery in 1977. Beginning in 1978, Meigh-Andrews began producing art using video as a medium, creating solo and collaborative exhibitions that expanded into sculptural installations. From 1981-1983, he attended Goldsmiths, earning an MA in Fine Art. In 2001, he was awarded a PhD from the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It o ...

The theme of renewable energy

Many of the artist's more recent works have featured renewable energy sources intended to power the works and interact with the gallery space. 1994's ''Perpetual Motion'' featured a video monitor powered by a wind turbine, with the wind being supplied by a fan plugged into the gallery's power. ''Mothlight'' (1998) and ''Mothlight II'' (2001) featured solar-powered video screens powered by halogen lights. His 2002 installation 2002, ''For William Henry Fox Talbot (The Pencil of Nature)'' consisted of a solar-powered video camera at

Lacock Abbey Lacock Abbey in the village of Lacock, Wiltshire, England, was founded in the early 13th century by Ela, Countess of Salisbury, as a nunnery of the Augustinian order. The abbey remained a nunnery until the suppression of Roman Catholic inst ...

, reproducing a live image of William Henry Fox Talbot's 1835 photograph of a latticed window at the abbey (the world's oldest surviving photograph), then transmitted to the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

in London. 2004's ''Interwoven Motion'' was an outdoor video installation in

Grizedale Forest Grizedale Forest is a 24.47 km2 area of woodland in the Lake District of North West England, located to the east of Coniston Water and to the south of Hawkshead. It is made up of a number of hills, small tarns and the settlements of Grizeda ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. C ...

, made up of a wind- and solar-powered camera and screen, it produced video images displayed on a weatherproof LCD display. 2005's ''Resurrection'' featured a series of solar panels mounted on a dead tree, powering a video display of the tree in its living form. And his 2011 installation ''Sunbeam'' used solar panels to power the projection of images of the sun from NASA’ s Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Other recent works

In 2009, Meigh-Andrews launched ''The Monument Project'' (Si Monumentum Requiris Circumspice). A digital video installation that ran online for three years, it consisted of a digital video camera mounted on

the Monument The Monument to the Great Fire of London, more commonly known simply as the Monument, is a fluted Doric column in London, England, situated near the northern end of London Bridge. Commemorating the Great Fire of London, it stands at the j ...

in the City of London. The installation streamed 360-degree panoramic time lapse sequences of the city online, with displays modified by a computer in response to changes in weather. His 2012 solo project, ''In Darwin's Garden'', was a web-based installation exhibited by the online journal ''Leonardo Electronic Almanac''. Recorded in the grounds of the Down House in Kent, England (Charles Darwin's family home), the exhibition focused on an old mulberry tree growing behind the house. In 2013, the artist created "Aeolian Processes", an outdoor solar powered sound installation for "Art In Your Park" in Highfields Park, Nottingham, which reflected once again his underlying impulse to explore “the role of machine and its impact on human perception.” Likewise, participating in the project "La Lune: Energy Producing Art" at Long Reef in Sydney, Australia, he installed "Aeolian Processes II". Meigh-Andrews is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Central Lancashire, directing the Electronic and Digital Art Unit (EDAU). He taught at the university from 1986-2012, first as the head of Time Based Media (1986-2000), then as a reader in Electronic and Digital Art (2000-2007), as the founder of the EDAU in 2004, and as a full professor in 2007.

Awards and fellowships

Meigh-Andrews was

Arts Council of England The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both h ...

International Artist Fellow in Kraków from 2003-2004. He won a research endowment from the National Endowment of Science, Technology and the Arts (

NESTA Nesta (formerly NESTA, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) is an innovation foundation based in the UK. The organisation acts through a combination of programmes, investment, policy and research, and the formation of part ...

) in 2004. He has received British Council Travel Awards to visit Amsterdam (2004), Poland and Malta (2005). In 2010, he was awarded the

Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation is a United Kingdom-based charity (registered no. 299955) established in 1988 to support closer links between Britain and Japan. It was founded with a benefaction from Daiwa Securities Co Ltd (now known as Daiw ...

Award, a travel grant to visit Tokyo, Kyoto and Nagoya to research into early artists' video in Japan.

Solo exhibitions

''Sculpting with Light & Time: Video and Installations 1978-2014'', The Minories Galleries, November, 2014 * ''In Darwin’s Garden'', Leonardo Electronic Almanac, August, 2012 * ''The Monument Project (Si Monumentum Requiris Circumspice)'', Project Launch, Nunnery Gallery, London, March 2009* The Basement, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1982 * Wawel z Mostu Debnickiego, Galeria Sztuki Wspólczesnej, Kraków, 2004 * ''Mothlight II'', 291 Gallery, London, June 2001 * ''Fenêtre Digitale'', Galeri Brighi, Paris, 2000 * ''Mothlight'', Rich Women of Zurich, London, 1999 * Glass Box Gallery, Salford, Greater Manchester, 1998 * Certosa di Calci/Museum of Natural History, Pisa, 1998 * ''Mind’s Eye'', Hotbath Gallery, Bath, 1997 * ''Fire, Ice & Steam'', Middlesbrough Gallery, Cleveland, 1995 * ''Vortex'', Prema Arts Centre, Uley, Gloucester, 1995 * ''Perpetual Motion'', Saw Contemporary Arts Centre. Ottawa, 1994 * ''Heaven & Earth'', London Film-Maker's Co-op, 1992

Major curatorial projects

* ''Digital Aesthetic'' (2001, 2007 and 2012), a collaborative exhibition between the University of Central Lancashire and the Harris Museum & Art Gallery. * ''Yes Snow Show'' (2008-2009), an exhibition of work by filmmaker Michael Snow, co-curated with Elisabetta Fabrizzi,

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery (United Kingdom), National Lot ...

, London. * ''Analogue: Pioneering Video from the UK, Canada and Poland: 1968-88'', a touring exhibition co-curated with Catherine Elwes, Tate Britain & Tate Modern, London, Foundation for Art & Creative Technology, Liverpool, The Norwich Gallery, The Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity, Valletta, MOCCA (Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art) Toronto, Arsenal Cinema, Berlin (2006–08); Ontario, Canada: Ottawa, Peterborough, Sarnia, Waterloo and Windsor (2008-2010).

Bibliography

* ''Video-tapes, Installations, CD Roms 1978-1997'', Chris Meigh-Andrews, University of Central Lancashire, 1998 * ''Video Installations, 1998/2004'', Chris Meigh-Andrews, University of Central Lancashire, 2005 * ''Analogue: Pioneering Video from the UK, Canada and Poland (1968-88)'' - Catherine Elwes and Chris Meigh-Andrews, editors, EDAU, Preston, 2006 * ''Digital Aesthetic 2'', Chris Meigh-Andrews, University of Central Lancashire, The Electronic and Digital Art Unit, 2008 * ''A History of Video Art: The Development of Form and Function'', Chris Meigh-Andrews, Berg, Oxford and New York, 2006 * ''A History of Video Art (Revised Edition)'', Chris Meigh-Andrews, Bloomsbury London, 2013 * ''A History of Video Art (Japanese Edition)'', Chris Meigh-Andrews, translated by Shinsuke Ina, Sangensha, Tokyo 2013 He has also contributed to larger edited works, including: * “Chris Meigh-Andrews, Sculptural & Video Installations: 1989-95”, ''Experiments in Moving Image'', Jackie Hatfield and Steve Littman, editors, Steve Epigraph Publications, London, 2004 * “Chris Meigh-Andrews: Early Video Tapes: 1978-87”, ''Experimental Film and Video'', Jackie Hatfield, editor, John Libby Publishing, 2006 * “The Vasulka Tapes”, ''Vasulka Lab 1969-2005-Live Archive'', Vivid, Birmingham, 2006 * “Interwoven Motion: steps towards a semi-permanent outdoor self-powered video installation”, ''The Itemisation of Creative Knowledge'', Clive Gillman, editor, FACT/ Liverpool University Press, 2006 * “Peter Campus”, ''100 Video Artists'', Rosa Olivares, editor, Exit Publications, Madrid, 2010 * “Video Installation in Europe and the USA: The Expansion and Exploration of Electronic and Televisual Space: 1968-1988”, ''Expanded Cinema: Film Art Performance'', Tate Publications, London, 2011 * “Optiks: Peter Campus”, and “In Conversation with Michael Snow”, ''The BFI Gallery Book'', British Film Institute, London 2011 * “Location & Dislocation, Site & Architecture: Video Installation by Palestinian Artists” in ''Palestinian Video Art: Constellation of the Moving Image'', ed. Bashir Makhoul, Palestinian Art Court-al Hoash, Jerusalem, 2013

References

External links

Official Website

The Minories Galleries website with details of the exhibition "Sculpting with Light & Time: Video and Installations 1978-2014"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meigh-Andrews, Chris British video artists Living people 1952 births Alumni of the Royal College of Art Artist authors Academics of the Royal College of Art Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London Alumni of the London College of Printing