Camberwell students Kris Lock from BA Painting and Tom Low work from BA Sculpture worked together for their degree show making two flocked sculptures and four CGI animated videos displayed on monitors on laminate wood plinths. Tom is from Huddersfield and Kris from Cambridge, they met during the first year at Camberwell. Talking about how they decided to collaborate, Kris and Tom said:
“We lived together and gradually influenced each other until it made more sense to merge together than to keep working separately.”
Can you please describe your art practice?
Tom: Our work is a collaborative effort, which actually becomes an important part of the way we make and think about the work. We began working together about two years ago due to our mutual interest in technology.
Kris: Most of our collaborative ideas are realised through animation and sculpture, we tend to display our work as installation as a collection of the objects and videos we have made.
What are you currently working on?
Kris: We have been thinking about the hidden physicality of systems and processes that enable the production of digital images. The videos in our current installation were originally made as individual pieces, but hold more weight as a single installation unified through motifs and objects that we have produced and reused throughout the year.
Tom: Our installation is built up of sculptures, plinths and monitors, which display 3D animation. Carpet tiles cover the floor where plinths rise, built from laminated wood, where the surfaces of are made using digital imagery. Sound also becomes an important part of the piece, when entering the spot lit room the audio mimics around you, synthetic stock sounds or MP3’s ripped from computer strategy games.
How has studying at Camberwell Informed or influenced you art practice?
Tom: Studying at Camberwell has informed my work massively, it has enabled me to meet Kris and share our solid interest together. We met during our first year at Camberwell, where we lived together and gradually influenced each other until it made more sense to merge together than to keep working separately.
Kris: Camberwell has definitely shaped how my ideas have developed. Being around a lot of like minded people has been very positive.
What are your future plans?
Tom: We plan on continuing our collaboration when we leave Camberwell, we already have some ideas of what we want to make next, which will again be an installation built up of multiple elements. We want to make a longer, singular animated film revolving around a narrative set in a regressed political future. I would also like to make monumental sized head, made using a flexible closed cell plastic or foam, like the material you find cheap flip flops made from.
Kris: I have recently become interested in voice command and artificial interaction with machines through speech and I am planning to build something using Amazon’s Alexa open source software. Then we’ll try and embed it into the flip flop head.
And Finally, do you have any advice to students looking to start at Camberwell?
Tom: If you are looking to start using 3D animating software as a tool for your practice then my advice is to start this exploration of the program early, as it involves a lot of sitting around and watching hours of tutorials to learn the basic principles of how the software works.
Kris: If you are interested in technology and want to make things using technology be aware that there isn’t much support for that kind of thing at Camberwell. Also make use of the technicians, they are very helpful!
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